Stalker Online
by DownloadWasTaken
Summary: A remake of STALKER seemed like an odd choice at the time for the world's first VR game. Kayaba argued the game's drive for realism made it a good choice for the first VR game, investors argued it was too niche and had too steep a learning curve, Kayaba argued it didn't matter with the hype and that people would buy it anyway. It was clear now Kayaba was just buying for time.
1. Chapter 0 Prologue

This is something I've been working on for a while.

* * *

 **Stalker Online**

 **Chapter Zero:**

 **Prologue**

He sometimes wondered if he had forgotten the felling of real rain. It was hard to tell, really, when his only experience for almost a year had been the simulation. It was almost like it had literally washed away the memories.

People had thought a remake of the cult-classic game series _S.T.A.L.K.E.R_ was an odd choice for the first completely immersive virtual reality game using the newly developed _NerveGear_ technology, particularly when the technology was coming from a Japanese company.

Using an existing IP would have been a good choice if they required more media exposure, but NerveGear didn't not lack media exposure. Demonstration of the technology had set the internet aflame. They also weren't lacking the capital to start a new IP from the ground up; the internet frenzy and the thorough debunking of claims the technology was a con had opened the venture-capital floodgates.

When questioned by his investors, Akihito Kayaba – the developer of the NerveGear – stated he had wanted the development team to spend as much time as possible before release refining the technology for the most immersive game possible, instead of spending time building a game lore and story from the ground up. He also told them S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl was a game known for its realism and immersion, which would make best uses of the technology. Any more concerns were further soothed when he informed them of the bargain price he had acquired the IP for from the long defunct developer.

Results from the beta period though were mixed. Like the originals, the game had a steep learning curve that investors feared would drive away players. Kayaba on the other hand argued it didn't matter given the hype surrounding technology, it's current exclusivity, and then pressed the need for a strong and all expansive technology demonstration like that found in S.T.A.L.K.E.R Online.

It was clear now Kayaba had just been buying for time.

The rain refusing to let up, Kirito was at least glad Suguha did not have to go through this. He continued to stew in this thoughts as the Monolith soldiers came into view through the synthetic haze.

Raising his _Vintorez_ 's scope to his eye, he carefully noted the number of soldiers, their equipment and – most crucially – their target. If the soldiers had much heavier equipment than anticipated or their numbers too great, or if their target was simply not there, they would let them pass unmolested and try again another day.

Thankfully, some of Argo's information seemed to have been an overestimation. The target's squad was one less than anticipated and they lacked a general-purpose machine gun like a PKM as anticipated. On the downside, the target was not wearing conventional armour, instead he was wearing an exoskeleton designed to increase a wearer's strength and in turn allowed him to wear heavier armour.

This wouldn't be a problem if they were simply going to eliminate the Monolith squad; Kirito would simply put a bullet through the man's head to put him down for good before the rest of his squad opened up. But it wasn't so simple; they were after the information carried, not the man that carried it, and the man that carried it possessed a dead-man switch that would set off a cluster of incendiary grenades and destroy the documents if his brain matter was spread over the Zone.

Some other couriers possessed a simpler but more foolproof dead-man switch that required the courier to hold down a button, but this prevented the courier from using their weapons effectively. No, the latest couriers had started using a more sophisticated dead-man system that literally determined if the man was dead.

This required them to maim the courier enough to stop him fleeing while they finished off his squad, but not enough that he would bleed out before they could secure the documents. An exoskeleton further complicated the equation through additional armour the wearer could carry and the greater ability of exoskeleton wearers to use the system to support grievously injured legs.

"Sinon, you seeing what I'm seeing?"

Using the radio was a risk. Most high-end radios had a channel scanning feature that could detect strong radio signals and allow the user to listen in. The plan initially had been told hold fire if Kirito held fire, and open fire if he opened fire. It was a time proven and reliable way to initiate an ambush. The only way to pre-empt them was to spot one of the potential ambushers. It was a risk they had to take.

Kirito's earpiece crackled for several seconds before Sinon responded.

"I wish I had brought my rifle," she replied irritably.

She had learned early on the general overall weakness of a bolt-action rifle, and was forced to adopt a more versatile semi-automatic platform. That didn't mean she didn't own a large-calibre bolt-action rifle for special occasions, only it required her to know beforehand she would need it. Still, her AR10 was the hardest hitting rifle they had with them and would be needed to punch through that armour.

"Can you make the shot?" asked Kirito.

"What do you take me for?" she replied. "It's no more than one-fifty, maybe one-sixty metres."

That wasn't what he meant. He was well aware of Sinon's shooting prowess.

"Just remember to go through the servos."

"I said, what do you –" she said before stopping and sighing. "Understood."

"Everyone, stand-by," finished Kirito as he picked out a target.

They would normally have emplaced mines in the ambush zone, such as claymores or the Soviet copies that were so ubiquitous in the Zone, but that wasn't a viable option here. Nor was hammering their position with GP-25 grenades or an RPG. Even Klein's light machine gun was of limited utility here, though if things went south fast its firepower would be quickly appreciated.

Lining up the chevron-shaped reticle of his rifle's scope with the Monolith squad's pointman, he waited for the crack of Sinon's rifle.

o0o0o

It was ironic in a way, really, that she had joined S.T.A.L.K.E.R Online to get past her fears. The game was supposed to be challenging, realistic and scary at times. She felt it right balance of everything to conquer her fears, after all, could she have done it in a heavily stylised, non-immersive, first person shooter with low perceived stakes? The death game though was a bit much, and utterly strangling her fears was the only reason she was still alive. She could cry later in the safety of Rostok.

The game had taught her to kill, and not in the "think of the children" concerned parent sort of way. It actually forced her to kill, to put down the PK'ers who were literally no different than bandits or better than blind dogs, or in one instance to put down the sorry soul who couldn't take it anymore and had felt the need to ease everyone else's suffering on the way out.

At least the Monolith soldiers, like people who had been zombified by an emission or a controller, were already dead. They were just NPCs with the faces of dead adults and children. As long as you didn't think about the face, it was easy to line up a shot that in real life would be beyond cruel.

Lining up the reticle on the expensive optic and following the aim-point through, she slowly exhaled and squeezed the trigger. The match-grade projectile quickly closed the one-hundred and fifty or so metre gap, passed through the couriers left knee servo, through the knee itself and out the other side. The courier's leg immediately collapsed and he keeled-over sideways.

Long before the Monolith squad could react, Klein's _Fabrique Nationale_ Minimi light machine gun opened up with a roar a dozen metres to her right. Trying to avoid the courier, he had targeted the squad's pointman at the front who quickly went down. Every fifth round was a red line of a tracer, and sometimes the tracer bullets would hit the ground, ricochet and then shoot off in streak of red in odd directions.

Pushing the distraction out of her mind she lined up a quick shot on another squad member trying to scramble over some rusting fencing to concealment. She put two rounds into his side as he side-saddled over the fence before seeing him drop and disappear over the other side of the fence. Uncertain she had actually killed him, she finished up with a few more rounds through the lower portion of the fence where he should have fallen and hoped for the best.

The Monolith squad was beginning to return effective fire now as several members of the squad at the rear managed to move back twenty meters and find some defilade in the form of a rusting bulldozer. Only able to identify Klein's position due the distinct and regular muzzle flash, they mostly focused their return fire there. Close by, she could easily recognise the distinct supersonic cracks of bullets passing overhead. Instinctively sinking into a lower position, she lined up her rifle in the direction of the squad members returning effective fire to witness one gripping the pistol grip of his under-barrel GP-25 grenade launcher.

She barely registered it before she saw a small puff of smoke and the grenade began to close the two-hundred metre gap.

"Grenade! Down," she shouted.

Klein's fire ceased as he presumably hugged the ground and the relatively slow grenade made its four-second dash.

Part of her absently noted how the game managed to replicate the thud you could feel in your chest as the grenade fell a dozen metres short, detonating on the embankment below them. Mud and gravel rained down on them to add to the drizzle of the rain.

o0o0o

Kirito lined up the second chevron from the top of his scope on the Monolith soldier wielding the AK-74M with the attached GP-25. Too late to stop him firing, he put two rounds into his chest in rapid succession and watched him drop almost instantly, the armour piercing SP-6 cartridge easily defeating the soft body armour.

Looking to his right he checked Agil, Silica and Aiko were putting fire on the Monolith squad's new position before looking over towards Klein's and Sinon's positions to see them recovering fire, relatively unhampered by the grenade. Pinned in position, the Monolith squad's fire began to falter as their maimed leader went through his programming and began to tourniquet his shredded leg.

"Agil, Aiko, with me – move up!" he ordered. "Silica, move up when I give you the signal."

With Klein and the main source of noise one-hundred odd meters across the road and the small valley, he could should loud enough to be heard by all three.

"Got it," replied Agil and Aiko as they stepped out of their rough foxhole, rifle raised.

Silica barely gave him a nod as she kept firing her MP5SD in the enemy's general direction, the soft sound of the suppressed sub-machine gun lost is the regular crack of rifle and machine gun fire.

At only thirteen, Kirito wanted to minimise Silica's presence on any combat party, but it was difficult to say no to extra help particularly with his hurriedly and haphazardly constructed party. Maybe if they had been going up against PK'ers such when they had to put down bandits instead of NPCs he would have refused her help. A part of him reminded himself she was only two years younger than him but he tried to internally justify position as refusing to destroy one of the few remaining go-lucky players around; the loss of her smiling face would be a blow to moral.

Leading from the front and the enemy focussing on Klein and Sinon, Kirito quickly navigated down the side of the small valley trying to avoid slipping in the wet mud with Agil and Aiko following behind. The fence that ran along the road would shield them from view as they approached the pinned Monolith soldiers, but its thin sheet-metal construction offered little to none ballistic protection.

Shortly along the path he could make out a body lying at the base of the fence in Monolith colours. Unsure if it was alive of dead, he squeezed off two shots on the approach. Besides the slight movement as the heavy subsonic rounds met flesh, the body didn't move. Approaching quickly but cautiously he could see the soldier's neck was at a funny angle, probably from falling off the fence, and he was perforated with many bullets.

Idly considering the cost of the wasted ammo, he stepped over the corpse and kept moving, momentarily looking over his shoulder to see Aiko and Agil still following when he heard the distinct sound of bullets hitting light sheet steel.

"Fuck," he swore as he instinctively hit the ground.

He wasn't certain what had given their approach away as the enemy couldn't see them and had not shot at them when they were visible on approach. Chalking it up to mixture of it not mattering and a quirk of the enemy programming, he started crawling and signalled to keep following as the odd round perforated the fence.

"At least they don't know where we are," he said over his shoulder.

"I don't think Sinon and Klein can suppress them from their position," replied Aiko.

"I think you're right," said Agil. "It might have something to do with why they're shooting at us now."

He had not considered that, but the thought that the soft AI that controlled the Monolith soldiers had come up with that was concerning. They were not below learning, but it was usually a very slow process for the primitive and low computational demand algorithms that controlled complex interactions between thousands of humanoid NPCs and tens of thousands animal NPCs across the Zone.

Shaking his head wearily, they crawled the remaining fifty meters to the end of the fence.

o0o0o

It was a constant mantra in Silica's mind: _they're just NPCs_. The thought enabled her to line up her sights on a simulacrum of a person and squeeze the trigger, to know they're not real people even if sometimes they wore faces she recognised. To know the blood and the gore was not real. The words were almost so strong in her mind she couldn't spare a thought to great risk of death all of them, everyone her friend, risked on this mission. In a way it was a blessing and she knew she would barely function with that constantly on her mind.

" _Klein, when I say go, cover us,_ " she heard Kirito order over the radio.

" _Hold up, hold up, I need to load more ammo_ ," she heard him reply.

Klein's fire immediately dropped up as he presumably began to reload. To prevent the Monolith squad from recovering, Sinon did her best to pick up the fire. Adding to the fire herself, it felt like a long fifteen seconds before Klein responded.

" _Alright, I've got another two-hundred rounds in the gun."_

Kirito didn't wait.

" _Go!_ "

Klein's fire immediately went to an almost constant stream of fire. Adding her own into the mix, she quickly drained the remains of her magazine and began fumbling for a new one when three rapid tremendous cracks and flashes of fragmentation grenades lit up the Monolith position through the haze of the rain.

" _Everyone, hold fire!_ "

Klein and Sinon cut off their fire as three figures came out from around the fence, rifles raised. They fired a few small bursts of fire before reaching the former Monolith position.

" _We're clear_."

She sagged with relief at the words, flicked the fire select lever to safe and began to grab her empty magazine off the bottom of her foxhole.

" _Sinon, what's the Courier up to?_ "

Sitting up and looking herself, she could see a trail of blood and scuff marks across the trail leading to a position concealed by the fence.

" _Well, he's still kicking,_ " replied Sinon. " _He bound his knee and is trying to drag himself along the fence line. He left his rifle behind."_

There was a crack of a handgun as Aiko finished off one of the Monolith soldiers that hadn't made it to the last stand by the bulldozer.

o0o0o

Kirito could see the courier's SIG SG550 assault rifle lying in the mud to the side as they approached with rifles trained on him. The Monolith were programmed as fanatics, so the lack of the rifle would not easily be a hindrance to him trying to kill them. All it could take was a hand grenade or for him to pull his sidearm. He would rapidly die to Sinon's bullet but with him he would take Kirito, Aiko and Agil.

Looking up to the hillside, Kirito was glad to see Sinon hunched over her rifle and ready to dispatch the courier if he seemed to be reaching for a weapon. It would mean the loss of the documents but the documents were very expendable compared to people. They'd just have to wait again for another of the routine interception missions.

The courier only noticed him as he leant down and pulled the Ukrainian made Fort-12 handgun from the holster on his waist and threw it to the side. NPC AI was always growing and with it came oddities; it may be that the game decided a grievously wound NPC should have a lower situational awareness like would be the case in real life, or it might be some other strange bug.

Making sure he didn't get in Sinon's line of fire, he grabbed the courier by the strap of his load bearing vest and rolled him onto his side causing him to groan in pain and leaving him supported by the bulk of his backpack. The backpack contained the prize. Checking the pouches on his front, Kirito removed a single RGD-5 hand grenade and a folding knife. Dropping grenade in his dump pouch he unfolded the knife and moved to roll the courier back over again so he could disarm the incendiary device attached to the documents when he finally noticed the face.

He could never have said they were friends, or even on agreeable turns, but he would never have wished such an inglorious death on Kobatz, lieutenant-colonel of Duty. He and his small group of elite Duty members had gone searching for the location of one of the X-labs, X-14, several months back. Without much headway on shutting down the brain scorcher several of Duty's senior members including Kobatz had theorised the lab – as the closest lab to what they thought was the location of X-19 and the controls for the southern antenna array of the Brain Scorcher – might lead into X-19 and allow them to bypass the surface route through the Brain Scorcher, and across the Monolith and zombie infested surface. Shutting down a section of the brain scorcher (or all of it) was crucial to allowing them to push towards the CNPP and ending the game.

It wasn't much of a shock after his disappearance – people didn't just disappear in the Zone; they died, or got zombified, or fell to the charm of the Monolith – but was clear something had gone wrong with their plan.

Trying not to think about it, he rolled Kobatz onto his front eliciting another painful groan and began pulling the backpack open. Inside he found a manila folder with a scuffed red cylinder taped to it with gaffer tape. The cylinder appeared to be a grenade body with the standard timer grenade fuze pulled out and an electrically initiated blasting cap inserted and taped in place instead. Defuzing was a simple matter of pulling the blasting cap from the grenade body before cutting it off. The remains of the grenade might have some value so he dropped it into his dump pouch along with the knife.

"Kirito…"

He froze. His mind whirled for a few seconds before he came to the conclusion this was just a new trick the AI had cooked up to mess with their heads

"Kirito…"

The strained voice was clearly coming from Kobatz as he began to try and right himself.

Not sure what he was doing he grabbed Kobatz by the strap of his load bearing equipment and slowly turned him over. Kobatz's eyes were clear and his breath short and strained.

"We may never have been friends –" he said as he gasped a short breath, "but thank you for saving me from the dreams."

He gave a few final gasps for air before stilling, his eyes never left Kirito.

Behind him, Aiko and Agil were pale and wide eyed. Hearing the sound of feet on gravel he turned away from them to see Silica approaching them. Her MP5 was hanging down her front from a one-point sling as she shuffled through a backpack she was carrying.

"We can't tell anyone about this."

It was Agil who said it. As the oldest – and probably the most wise and worldly of the group – he had his finger to the pulse of every Stalker that passed through his shop. He knew what this revelation would do to morale, what it would do to many of the younger stalkers who could only walk out the door and fight knowing the Mono with their friend's face that they had just brained was just a shell. Even the ones who didn't avoid PVP jobs like hunting bandits would be troubled by it; bandits chose their life, those controlled by the Monolith did not. How many could make the necessary sacrifice? What would it do to morale? Their psyche?

Silica was getting closer.

"What about zombies?" asked Aiko.

He didn't know, where they just shells like they had thought?

"I played the original STALKERs," said Agil. "It was years ago, but one of the missions… it… it had you helping a bunch of guys who had broken free of the Monolith find a new group."

Agil shook his head.

"That was after the C-Consciousness was destroyed be Strelok though."

Aiko put her fingers to her lips and signalled Agil to stop speaking; Silica was far too close and Agil had been right about not telling.

"We'll talk later," said Aiko quietly as Silica came to a halt.

"Got the documents?" she asked.

"Yeah," replied Kirito, motioning to the bundle of papers in a manila folder with a half-attached piece of tape on its front laying a few feet from Kobatz.

"Can you help me get his backpack off?" she asked. "I'd like a new one."

Her existing bag – in hand – was clearly of Soviet make and made from faded tan-green canvas the Soviets had favoured in the 1960s. Having carried a similar bag in his first few weeks of the beta he knew they were uncomfortable to use and the game managed to accurately replicate the feeling of the thin straps cutting into your shoulders if you overloaded them. The bag Kobatz had been using though was a modern Western military assault pack with MOLLE attachment points and comfortable padded straps.

"Oh."

Silica had noticed the face.

"He was one of the Duty big-wigs, wasn't he?" she asked sadly, misinterpreting the group's discomfort.

He could almost hit himself for the five-second delay in replying.

"Y-yeah," he replied before awkwardly adding, "Kobatz was his name."

Silica gave Kirto a sad smile.

"Just remember it's not a real face."

He gave her a strained smile and nodded. Distracted with helping pull the pack off, she didn't notice the falseness.

"Klein, Sinon, keep an overwatch while we loot," he ordered over the radio.

Most of the weapons carried by the ruined Monolith squad were pretty mediocre by the group's standards and weren't worth the weight of carrying them back for sale. Even Agil with his sense of entrepreneurship wasn't interested. The only weapon of interest had been Kobatz's SIG SG550. The real money to be made was in the ammo carried; people always needed ammo.

o0o0o

"We're not going to make it back before the blowout."

They still didn't know what did it, but a lot of stalkers swore they could predict blowouts were coming tens of minutes before the official sensors tripped and the warning was given. It was like an itch or just a feeling in the back of your mind, a feeling something was about to happen. They weren't sure if the game changed an environmental cue slightly or if the game had picked stalkers randomly to get the "feeling" of a blowout before it happened.

A lot of the more experienced stalkers could do it and even a few of the rookies; Kirito, Agil, Aiko and Sinon included.

Turning to Sinon, Aiko agreed with her.

"Yeah, I've been getting the feeling. It must be an early emission."

To the "non-force sensitive" the feeling was a mystery, even if they quickly learned to trust the feeling of their fellow stalkers. For one it would save your life if there was no nearby shelter or if that shelter was cut off by enemies. It wasn't unheard of to stumble into shelter at the last minute only to find you're sharing the space with a snork or five. If you had extra time you may decide to forgo fighting snorks in close quarters and run the extra distance to the next nearest shelter.

"What's the nearest shelter people know of?" asked Kirito.

It wouldn't be until the emission officially began that they got map markers on their PDAs.

"The gang and I –" Klein said, referring to his group of door-kickers called Fuurinkazan "– camped out in a big stormwater pipe nearby a month back. But I think with all the rain it will be flooded."

The statement got a few unhappy agreements as the party halted and mingled as people dug out PDAs and began looking at their maps trying to predict the shelter locations.

"There's a substation about five-hundred meters to the east," suggested Sinon. "They usually have a brick-constructed equipment building on site."

Everyone looked the Klein as he apparently knew the area better.

"Nah, I think it's packed with electro-anomalies."

"Typical," someone muttered.

"We can't guarantee we can get into it either," added Kirito. "The doors are usually pretty solid."

The discussion ground to a halt as the sounds of Zone died off.

"Too late," said Aiko.

The Zone groaned and a huge crack with a note deeper than thunder came from the centre of the Zone. Radios crackled to life.

" _Attention, an emission is approaching, find cover at once!_ " said the voice of the NPC.

The safe shelter lit up on their PDAs and they began to run.

o0o0o

The old bomb-shelter they had found themselves in was attached to a ruined house. The distinctive circular sections of missing brick walls and roofing were indicative of former habitation by either _vortex_ or _whirligig_ anomalies. They would not likely have spotted the bomb-shelter on their satellite maps and would likely have dismissed the house as too ruined to offer protection. Unfortunately, the bomb-shelter was also home to a good foot of water pooling in its bottom.

Beggars couldn't be choosers.

"I was hoping to get some shuteye," said Aiko irritably.

The emission outside was intensifying. Multi-coloured flashes of light were lighting up the sky and an almost constant barrage of thunder could be heard. They had made it with perhaps five minutes to spare.

"I can't say I'm going to enjoy spending the new few hours standing in freezing water either."

Everyone murmured their agreement to Sinon's statement as they spread out into the small two-roomed shelter. The second room had shelves with a few very rusty cans of food and a few rotting barrels.

"Hey, I think there's a door back here," said Silica, climbing over the junk.

Though waterlogged and damp, the old door was quickly converted into a suitable seat by putting it on top of the barrels. No one was going to complain if it helped get them out of the water.

"Let's hope the barrels don't collapse," said Agil. As the heaviest in the group he was more liable to break their new seat than anyone else.

Aiko managed to get the spot on the end and fall asleep against the wall, while Agil, Silica and Klein quietly chatted and broke out some snacks. Kirito and Sinon took watch.

"Yeah, not really hungry," she said with a shrug when asked.

Looking Kirito in the eye, he knew she was lying and it was clear she wanted to talk about something in private. Hopefully, near the door, the sound of the emission would drown out a hushed conversation.

Despite the emission's lethality, the watch was necessary. It was far from uncommon for some poor soul to not reach shelter in time and it wasn't uncommon for said zombified stalker to just keep walking in the direction they were going. Worse was to have a controller stumble upon you. While almost every other creature in the zone took shelter during an emission, controllers did not.

There was little point in taking shelter to avoid an emission only to have your brain fried. Thankfully he'd only heard of it happening once in his time in the Zone.

Looking up the rough concrete staircase that lead out the bunker, he could see the multicoloured lights of the emission. The lights could best be described as a red and orange coloured aurora. He wasn't in a rush, Sinon could ask what she wanted to ask on her own terms.

"So, what did Kobatz say?" she asked a few minutes later. She didn't turn to face him and instead chose to lean against the wall, staring out at the emission.

He wanted to give her a questioning look and pretend there was nothing but she asked again.

"It was easy to see that what he said bothered you guys."

She turned to face him as he damned high-magnification scopes.

"I can't read lips."

He frowned.

"Do you really want to know?"

Sinon paused for several seconds.

"I don't like being left in the dark."

Kirito turned back to the emission and ran his fingers through his hair nervously.

"I'm not sure Monolith shells exist anymore," he said, turning back to face Sinon.

"What did he say?' she asked cautiously.

"He… he thanked me," Kirito replied. "He thanked me for saving him from the dreams."

Sinon was pale and looked like she was trying to hug herself.

"I took the shot."

"It's far from your first kill," replied Kirito with a sigh.

Real shells didn't count, but bandits like Laughing Coffin or the other bandit gangs did, even if they decided to trade in their humanity. His comment wasn't the most sensitive.

"Everyone else deserved it," she said darkly. "The Monolith really just controls people then?"

He nodded.

"It seems so."

"Agil mentioned a mission in the original trilogy. You had to help a group of Monos find a new faction after the C-Consciousness was destroyed and their minds were freed."

He shook his head.

"We don't know – Agil, Aiko and I didn't get much of a chance to discuss it before the emission – but maybe everyone who got brainwashed was supposed to be freed when we completed the game."

"Sounds like something Kayaba would do," replied Sinon before she sagged and continued. "What about zombies?"

He gave a half-hearted shrug.

"I don't think that's supposed to be a recoverable injury."

They stook in an uneasy silence for several minutes.

"There's nothing we can do about this, is there?"

"I doubt we were the first to discover this, we're just another in a long line to keep it quiet."

o0o0o

Kirito left a few minutes later offering to get her some food but she waived him off, leaving her to think. The emission continued to be as beautiful as it was lethal and gave her the time she needed.

As the emission finally started to die down, she heard the splashing of water and turned to see Aiko came out of the back room and join her on watch.

"You look like shit." She really did. "Did you get any sleep?"

It wasn't like having rings under her eyes was significant – everyone had those – but instead in her posture, like she was exhausted.

"Yeah, but it hasn't been doing me much good lately," Aiko replied.

"What's been happening?"

Aiko surveyed her for a few seconds before answering.

"Headaches, dizziness. Sometimes – you know… it's like holding your breath for too long and everything dims." Aiko seemed resigned. "It's like I'm short of breath but I can still breath. It comes and goes."

Sinon frowned and contemplated.

"A bad bug maybe? We've been in her nearly a year, maybe there's something wrong with using NerveGear for so long?"

Aiko shook her head.

"I know what it is. It's fine." Aiko's tone stony, it brook no disagreement.

"You know that's an acronym, right?" asked Sinon.

Aiko scrunched up her nose in distaste.

"Yeah, I know."

"You mind taking watch? I want to get some food."

"Sure," replied Aiko.

Sinon turned to walk into the back room before pausing.

"It might not be my business to know what's wrong, but Yuuki is family, and it makes it hers. Don't forget it, because I'll know."

Looking over her shoulder, she saw give a small Aiko nod.

o0o0o

It was difficult to know _what_ exactly was wrong with the taste of your food when you hadn't been able to compare it to the real thing in months. Still, the creature comforts of Silica's miniature propane stove seemed to distract everyone from their water-logged boots. No one else bothered to carry one; travelling light was a valuable asset for the more veteran stalkers and if you really desired a warm meal you could either get one back at base or build a fire. Silica's stove was a nice convenience though.

"I think we need to mix it up," said Agil offering out his can of beans. "Sausages and beans is far more interesting than one or the other."

The preserved sausage Kirito was cooking on the open flame of the stove was beginning to char slightly.

"You'll probably want some as well," he said nudging Klein. "It's probably far better than the mystery meat in that canned soup."

Klein gave him a sceptical look.

"You don't exactly need to eat healthily in this game, you know."

Agil rolled his eyes.

"God, don't you want some actual texture in your food? I can guarantee you that soup is just a puree."

Klein scowled.

"I know." He contemplated for a few seconds before agreeing. "Get your cup out and I'll give you half the soup for half that sausage."

Kirito have him a strained smile.

"I didn't bring it. I don't normally carry it and certainly not for a day mission."

"Fine, drop that sausage in the cup and we'll share," said Klein with a slight about of exasperation.

"What about me?" asked Agil as he held out his can.

"What's this about?"

"They're arguing about food," explained Silica to Sinon who had just walked through doorway.

"Oh, well I would like some non-western food for once," said Sinon. "I don't mind this stuff but I would like something a bit different after so long – something from home."

"Yeah, I heard you, I travelled back and forth between the States and Japan a lot as a kid so I can tolerate the Western heavy diet, but I would like some more variety," said Agil. "There's so many things I'm doing when we get out of here. My wife…"

Agil stopped and shook his head.

"Yeah, what are you going to do to your wife?" asked Sinon with exaggerated lecherousness.

Agil gave her a sceptical look.

"I'm not discussing my sex life with a fifteen-year-old."

Sinon laughed at him before sighing.

"I could never have said that to anyone a year ago."

"Let's stick to more happier topics," suggesting Silica, steering the conversation away and slightly red in the face.

"I hear Kirito doesn't have your problem, Agil, if what I've heard from Asuna is right," said Sinon with a smirk.

Everyone turned to Kirito to confirm it.

"Thanks for sharing that, Sinon," he said with a strained voice.

"So, have you two been having fun?" she kept pushing.

"You know the game doesn't support… intimacy, right?" he asked carefully.

"And let's be thankful it doesn't, given the types of people stuck here in the Zone with us," muttered Klein.

Silica gave him a glare.

"When I said I wasn't going to discuss my sex life, you realise I meant it the other way too, right?" said Agil through a mouth of beans and sausage. "Look, you want relationship advice I can give it, I've got more sage advice that this idiot." He indicated to Klein. "But I'm not giving you the birds and the bees talk."

Sinon gave him a cheery salute before pulling out some food and heating it up.

* * *

 **Some story notes from the author:**

Stalker Online is my attempt to make a better Sword Art Online. The concept of the virtual reality deathgame is excellent, many of the characterisations are great, a few of the plot arcs have been great (mostly Mother's Rosario) ... the rest though has been pretty meh. I guess it pissed me off that the author could come up all these great ideas before weighing it down with harem garbage, a damsel in distress every hour, and a very bland main character.

For the SAO fans who will inevitably complain that I have criticised their favourite franchise: I don't really care and I (and probably the moderators) would appreciate it if you don't shit up the reviews section with said complaints. If you must, PM me, though I make no guarantees I will reply. That said, I'm quite happy to accept genuine criticism. If you believe I have butchered a character you can say so.

A number of characters from later SAO seasons have been brought in despite in SAO canon never being stuck in the deathgame. Sinon is from the Gun Game arc, and sisters Yuuki and Aiko are from Mother's Rosario being the main ones.

And then, to top it all off, I chose to stick them in STALKER, what is probably the worst game world you could possibly ever find yourself stuck in. Stalker fans should note that in story, STALKER Online is an _adaptation_ of Shadow of Chernobyl. There will be many things recognisable to fans, but you shouldn't look at SoC (or CS or CoP or Call of Chernobyl) as being the definitive guide for the comings and goings of SO.

The first few chapters are very much based off the plot of the first few episodes of SAO, but soon after the plot will really get off the rails.

Regarding Sinon (minor spoilers for the fic):

I chose to change Sinon's back story very slightly. In canon she's slightly scared of men and very scared of guns for reasons you can look up on the wiki. I chose to go the other direction; instead of guns she's scared of being a victim and of being powerless, a gun (and any other weapon) as a means to protect herself is a comfort. Feed an apparent fascination with weapons into how Japanese society would view a child who has killed someone (no matter how justified it was) and you end up with a socially ostracised and frowned upon teenager.

The end result though is the same, just in a way I felt was a bit better. I just couldn't really come up with an idea how to explain a girl who's deathly afraid of firearms yet felt she needed to overcome that fear in a nation where they're almost non-existent.

Her motivations will be explained in story at some point. I just haven't figured out when yet.

I would like to thank TheannaTW for her fic Stalker Zero which provided some inspiration for this.

So, lets get on with the story.

 **181102 - Some typos and minor rewording**


	2. Chapter 1 Only a Game

I think there was a six month or so gap between writing the prologue and finishing this chapter.

* * *

 **Stalker Online**

 **Chapter One:**

 **Only a Game**

D+0

"Hey you! Yes you!" The mid-twenty something with the Slavic features paused to turn to the voice. "You want to buy some info? I know of a few stashes that can get you some decent gear early on."

The woman had a sawn-off shotgun of some kind in hand and was dressed in hooded black leather trench coat.

The stalker looked her over a few times before approaching.

"You one of the beta-testers?"

The girl opened her arms wide as a non-threatening gesture.

"Sure, where do ya' think I got this kit? I sure as hell haven't had the time to make the money for it with the servers coming online only an hour ago."

The man still looked a big uneasy.

"So, what, you sell stash locations or something?"

"That, among other things. I'm Argo, if you want information on anything you can come to me."

She didn't need to mention the price, if you didn't know it would cost you something you were a fool.

"Alright, what will it cost me for a stash with some decent weapons?" asked the man, his curiosity piqued.

Argo pulled out her PDA and took a few seconds to check her list.

"Well, for nine-hundred I can give you the location of a stash with an MP5 in it. Great starter, really accurate for a sub-gun and it's really cheap to feed."

"Nine-hundred!" exclaimed the man. "That's most of my starting money!"

Argo shrugged.

"It's nine-hundred rubles or nothing. You'd have to pay at least four-thousand if you wanted to buy an MP5 off Sidorovich."

Argo gestured towards the crowd blocking the view of Sidorovich's bunker. Sidorovich was the NPC trader here in Cordon's Rookie Village.

"It's even in an easy location; nothing more than some blind dogs nearby," she pressed. "Worst for worst, you die, you end up here in the village, and you try again."

The man quickly caved and traded the money for the stash. With a threat to be back if she had lied, he walked off with his only weapon – an anaemic Soviet-era 9mm Makarov PM handgun – and quickly left the village.

"Hey Kirito."

Dressed in the typical rookie clothing of blue jeans and a muddy-brown polyester jacket, the young man with black hair and Asiatic features looked like every other rookie logging on and appearing in the Rookie Village.

"Going for the bandit look?" he asked. Having caught the tail end of the conversation with her previous customer. "I'm kind of expecting you to have some goons ready to jump they guy and steal his can of beans looking like that."

Argo scowled.

"This isn't the bandit look, it's the information broker look!"

Kirito raised an eyebrow sceptically.

"Right, so why are you selling the locations of those stashes instead of looting them?" he asked. "You said it yourself, that MP5 is worth way more than nine-hundred rubles."

"Hey, I've got to set a precedent as _the_ information broker!" she explained. "Everyone serious about this game is logging on now and I want every one of them to know my name and to know that I'm reliable."

"The image really worth more than the kit?"

Argo looked at him with a mild amount of disbelief.

"Uh, yeah?"

Kirito shrugged, he wasn't sure he understood the fellow beta-tester's fascination of living out the fantasy as an information broker. It had nothing to do with living out the game world, rather why you would pick an information broken when far more exciting roles to play existed. It was like why you would play as a trader in a game without real money conversion.

"What have you got for me?" he asked.

Argo hummed as she pulled out her PDA again and started scrolling through what was presumably the list of stashes she had accumulated during the beta period.

"I can give you a stash with an AKM, and another with a Bear detector and one of those awful Soviet rubber chemical suits."

The offer seemed far more than fair. He frowned and looked at her suspiciously.

"I'm the same as everyone else, Argo, if you charged that guy nine-hundred for an MP5 there's no way I can afford those stashes.

"I don't want your money," said Argo, smiling sweetly.

"What do you want then?" he asked, not liking where this was going.

"I want a favour," she answered. "One favour from you in the future. It's worth a lot more than a thousand rubles."

Kirito sighed. He hoped this wouldn't bite him in the ass in the future.

o0o0o

"Yeah, you can normally talk to Sidorovich face-to-face," muttered someone at the entrance to the bunker.

"So… what? Is it something to do with so many people trying to buy stuff and get basic missions?" asked the guy next to him as he tapped away at a screen only visible to him.

"I have to think so. There weren't many of us in the beta so I guess we never managed to trip it. I can understand why though, there would be a queue all the way back to the military checkpoint if we had to wait in line."

Walking up to the bunker entrance and the gaggle of people, the game started prompting Sinon to initiate dialogue. Pushing the hovering accept button a dialogue window opened, displaying a portrait of herself on one side and another of a fat balding man on the other side separated by a dialogue box.

"Sidorovich: Another rookie," was written in the dialogue box before the floating window began to speak with an older male voice, repeating the words. "Do you want me to feed you the usual bullshit I feed the rookies or do you think you're a big girl and we can get straight to business?"

The window didn't have any obvious dialogue choice buttons like any game she'd played before. She was about to try experimenting with the various buttons when a second overlay popped up.

" _Welcome to your first interaction with an NPC!_

 _A number of NPC interaction options are available to you. The default is voice interaction, however written interaction and traditional dialogue options are available. Other options such as NPC muting, secret interaction, and disabling of the trader and dialogue window are also available._

 _NPCs use a sophisticated soft AI system and are capable of understanding most questions and responses."_

"Uh, okay…" said Sinon, momentarily lost for words. "What is 'secret interaction'?"

" _Secret interaction mutes your voice to other players during interaction with NPCs allowing you to hide your purchases and other dealings."_

"Uh, right," she responded. "Um – close window?"

The window now closed she returned to the conversation.

"I don't want to be fed bullshit, but I would like some advice."

"Hmm, there are plenty of jobs about if you need one, you just have to ask. I can recommend basic equipment based on your personal preferences. I can also give you some tips of the various hazards of the Zone such as anomalies, blowouts and mutants. I can point you towards good anomaly fields and recommend good detectors; it is after all in my best interest for you to return with the loot. I can give you an overview of the local area and I can sell you intel. What else would you like to know?"

Sinon frowned. Maybe she would need to start from scratch; she wasn't sure what half of what he said was.

o0o0o

Double checking the manual again, Asuna Yuuki was finally satisfied she'd correctly set up her brothers' NerveGear virtual reality system. He'd probably be a bit disappointed he'd missed out on being first to play it, but he would be away for at least a good few weeks on business. It was not like he'd lose out on anything with her using it early and it was easier to ask for forgiveness anyway.

Sitting on her bed, back against the headboard, she slipped the helmet on.

It was disorientating at first, like she was in free fall, before her senses adjusted and she found herself standing in an endless void in front of a computer window. The window was a game select screen that current only have one game on it: _S.T.A.L.K.E.R Online: Shadow of Chernobyl._

Reaching out to touch the start game box she realised her hands were grey and featureless before she found herself assaulted by the logo of Argus, the company that made the NerveGear helmet, the logo for Cardinal, the software that manages the virtual reality system, and then the words "Directed by Kayaba Akihiko".

Asuna then found herself in a dingy room overlooking the iconic shape of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The grey sarcophagus had patches of fire on it, the heat haze distorting the grey skies beyond.

Pulling her eyes away from the scene she looked over the room. The floor were empty cartridge cases, a few pieces of military equipment such as a gas mask and over against a wall was some sort of rocket launcher. And there was the menu screen.

Selecting new game, it asked for a name and she entered Asuna before it asked her what world she wanted to join. There was only one option though:

 _World 1 … Location: Japan … Difficulty: Master … Player count: 9,336/12,000 … Ping: 8ms_

This was really her first proper gaming experience, she wasn't even sure she would keep playing this. Really, she was only here because she had heard the hype and figured she should at least take a look at the world's first fully immersive virtual reality simulator. Despite her inexperience though, she knew "master" was not an easy difficulty, in fact she was sure it was usually the hardest difficulty level.

 _"Well, it's not like I intended to play this seriously"_ she though as she accepted the only currently available game world.

The game dropped her again in another endless void, only this time there was a generic European male wearing track pants and a dirty brown leather jacket in front of her. Several windows accompanied him. It took her several seconds to realise they were character customisation windows before she first switched her gender to female and her ethnicity to Asian.

She gave a momentary though to what her mother would have said if she knew the game threw in Japan with the other Asian nationalities before adjusting the age slider to her own. She almost immediately changed her mind when she realised the game would give her some leeway with her appearance.

After making some positive adjustments she moved on to find the game didn't give her any other options for clothes besides "muddy jeans #1" and a "track suit #3" before she reluctantly settled on looking like a vagrant.

Satisfied with her physical appearance if not her clothes she pushed the Start Game button and found herself in a ruined village.

"Heh, another one?"

The voice was high pitched and definitely sounded young, but it also had a slight nasal quality to it. It seemed fitting given it had come from what looked like a twelve-year-old girl.

"Want to join our clan?" she asked. "Girls only – you seem like the right sort."

She was a bit touched that someone had already wanted to invite her to a clan (some ort of group?) and was about to ask some questions when another distinctly male voice cut in.

"Hehe – yeah, guys in real life. _Girls_ – get it?"

Except the voice wasn't coming from a male, it was coming from a woman with the most ridiculous body proportions Asuna thought she ever seen.

"Heh – yeah, I was a bit disappointed the game won't let undress my character," replied the 'twelve-year-old'.

Feeling a bit sickened she replied, "I'm a girl, thank you very much."

Her distaste was clearly evident on her face and in her tone.

The man posing as a child mimed a groping gesture before replying, "Sure you are."

Before she could reply the two men walked off.

She was tempted to immediately log out and take a shower but realised she'd been here all of two minutes and should at least take a look around.

o0o0o

"Come on, Yuuki, it will be fun!"

Aiko guided her sister through the dilapidated village. It was strange to be in such a filthy place after the last few years of obsessive cleanliness and minor-illness-driven anti-socialness. The fact it wasn't technically real didn't matter; Aiko and Yuuki were outside again and could have some fun.

The breeze she could feel didn't seem exactly right, but it was close enough that she could get used to it. She was not sure this was the right game to enjoy the breeze though.

"I'm still not sure about this game," replied Yuuki. "Couldn't we have waited for a game a bit less serious?"

"Ugh, that's months away! We've got to make the most of it."

Yuuki frowned slightly at the comment, but she couldn't really say no when he sister suggested they did something together.

They already had gotten some equipment from the trader – a worn looking pump-action shotgun and a slightly rusty sub-machine gun – and were looking at their first adventure. The trader had given them a simple mission of killing some mutants. Their PDA's map gave them a location about an hour's walk away deeper into the zone, past the railway embankment in the distance. The mission was slightly more difficult than a solo mission as they'd signed up as a pair.

Heading out of the starter village it was hard to remind yourself that this was just a virtual world. The landscape really did look like civilisation abandoned by man, former fields that would have once been filled with crops were clearly delineated from the forests at their edge, former homes stood by derelict, their windows smashed and doors rotted, the tarmacked roads they crossed were cracked and trees grew up through them.

Still, everything felt unnatural. For example, there were no birds singing in the trees, only crows that watched you like they were waiting for you to keel over and die, and the wind sounded… unsettling, like it was haunted.

"This place is so lonely," said Yuuki as they approached the railway.

"It's a bit creepy," her sister agreed.

The embankment the railway was situated on was a good twenty or thirty metres high with steep sides and loose stones.

"The satellite map isn't as useful as I thought it would be, it's basically impossible to tell there was an embankment here from it," said Aiko looking up from her PDA at it.

"Climb, or go around?"

In a more normal game they might have given a shot at climbing it, but here – even though you couldn't _really_ die – it still felt weird to risk your neck climbing the loose stones.

"Around I think," replied Aiko as she looked at her PDA again. "Yeah, there's a bridge about 500 metres to the east," she continued, gesturing towards their right. "Looks like a road goes under it."

Trailblazing through the waist high grass it wasn't long before they could clearly see the bridge and the ruined road beneath it. Approaching closer they could see the bridge itself was also ruined, a distorted patch of light and clouds in the centre of the gaping missing piece and a perilously hanging railcar.

"Is that an anomaly?" asked Yuuki.

"Uhh, maybe?" replied Aiko. "It looks like what the trader described."

They had halted in the grass, gazing up at the monstrosity when suddenly a staccato of cracks filled the air. In their pondering they had missed the soldiers guarding the pass.

Yuuki grabbed her sister by her jacket and pulled her to the ground. The enemy fire increased as presumably all of the soldiers guarding the pass were alerted, but unable to get a bead on them in the grass the fire was scattered.

"Shit, shit, shit," was all Aiko could say as they started to crawl back the other direction along the path they had blazed.

Yuuki didn't add to it but it was hard to think this was just a game when the supersonic crack of bullets passed over your head. She could admit to herself it was thrilling and certainly got her heart racing. But still…

Eventually as the fire dropped off they felt safe enough to move to a low run just in case the soldiers tried to follow them.

"Damn," was all Yuuki said as they reached roughly the point where they had first met the embankment.

"Yeah, my heart is going a mile a minute," replied her twin, wide eyed. "I didn't even manage to get a shot off."

Secretly she was thankful she had a sling for her shotgun else she'd probably have dropped it and left it behind.

"That was a bit more extreme than I had expected," Aiko continued. "If you – uh – want to stop this and wait for a new game… we could do that."

Yuuki shook her head.

"No, I'm okay," she replied. "It was scary… but good."

Further discussion was cut off by the barking of dogs. Turning to the sound they could see maybe a bit short of a dozen dogs were quickly bearing down on them.

Aiko immediately stepped forward, brought her shotgun to her shoulder and fired off a round. One of the dogs yelped as a piece of buckshot grazed it, but due to the distance the remainder just kicked up chunks of damp soil. She momentarily forgot to reload as she pulled the trigger again to no effect before she remembered to cycle the action.

Yuuki cut in at that point with her PPSh-41 firing off a long burst and emitting a gout of flame from the vintage sub-machine gun. The burst had been as effective as the shotgun blast had; one hit for a dozen misses, except this time a bullet scored a direct hit causing the dog to give a whelp before collapsing as speed and flipping end over end.

As the dogs got quickly closer they suddenly found their inaccurate fire could actually begin to strike down the dogs, but it wasn't before long that one was within biting distance. The dog leaped towards Aiko and tried to snap at her neck which she only narrowly avoided by side stepping at the last moment. Turning around she aimed her shotgun as the dog tried to regain it's footing for another pass she pulled the trigger only to receive a click in return.

It took a fraction of a second for it to register she was out of ammo before she quickly scrambled to grab more shells from the pocket of her jacket. Flipping her shotgun over she fumbled with the shell, trying to get it through the loading gate and into the magazine but as the dog rapidly closed the distance she gave it up as a bad job and dropped her shotgun, allowing it to hang awkwardly by it sling.

Extra shells clattering to the ground she drew her handgun and fired off a round at the dog, which landed a good foot to the left and leading to Aiko discovering a handgun is much harder to aim. As the dog got increasingly closer she ended up mag dumping the remaining six rounds in the gun at the dog which put it down with a yelp.

Turning again she found Yuuki with her PPSh hanging by its sling and drum magazine discarded on the ground with her Makrov out and the surviving dogs on the run. Yuuki stared at the last wounded dog before shooting it and turning to her.

"Over the embankment?" she asked after a few seconds breather.

Aiko realised her ears were ringing slightly from the gunfire.

"Yeah, I think so," replied Aiko before shaking her head, hoping to clear the noise. "We should probably reload first."

Yuuki nodded and picked up her discarded empty magazine as Aiko went to look for her lost shotgun shells. Taking a second to examine the dogs Aiko could see all of their eyes were surrounded by cancerous growths and exuded copious amounts of what looked like puss. The dogs had been effectively blind.

The climb up the embankment was perilous as loose fist-sized stones constantly were dislodged and tumbled down. Both felt like they might become unstuck at several points and tumble down after them.

At the top they had a good enough view to see all the way back to the Rookie Village and the military cordon in the distance, in the other direction in the distance was lots of large mounds and what looked like vehicles. Down the track in the opposite direction to the ruined rail bridge was a lone distant figure examining a few derail rail cars.

"I wonder how much of this place we can explore?" asked Yuuki.

"The game area is supposed to be about sixty kilometres across and roughly round. I'd hope most of it."

Getting down the other side of the embankment was far easier than going up. Aiko followed her sister through the bushes at the bottom and found Yuuki facing the muzzle end of an AK.

"Hands in the sky, girlie."

The man holding it was wearing a black trench-coat and a balaclava. He spoke Japanese but with a clear accent she wasn't familiar with.

Reacting on instinct she fired from the hip, hitting the man in the gut while Yukki at the sound of the shotgun went down and sideways. She managed to avoid the gout of fire from the man's rifle as he went through the motions of death.

She hadn't noticed them until she had cut the first man down but on her left and right were similarly dressed bandits. It was almost like slow motion to Aiko as her sister gave the man on her left from the ground a long burst from her PPSh, bullets impacting his chest, neck and then his head as the recoil carried the muzzle of Yuuki's gun up.

Then, the man on the right shot her twice in the back of the head.

Aiko barely had time to realise what had just happened and pump the action of he shotgun when the man on the right turned his gun on her and gave her a burst of fire. A burning pain in her chest, her legs immediately gave out and she fell over backwards.

As everything began to fade and unable to feel any thing bellow her chest, panic set in at the realisation of what just happened before she found herself hyperventilating in a black void.

" _The Zone claims your life._ "

She barely had time to ponder the words before she found herself again in the Rookie Village. A million thoughts raced through her mind as she dropped to her knees and felt like she was about to vomit.

She felt a hand on her shoulder before it wrapped her up in a hug.

"Aiko?" It was Yuuki's worried voice.

o0o0o

Kirito felt somewhat naked climbing the exposed railway embankment with nothing more than a Makarov handgun, a few spare magazines and the clothes on his back. Clothes that offered zero ballistic protection, no camouflage and had barely enough pockets to carry three magazines and a PDA.

A few kilometres from Rookie Village, he'd only seen a few whirligig anomalies, and a couple of mutant boars and disfigured fleshes. Getting some decent kit was top priority and the AKM would be a good start. With it he could go into the deeper parts of the Zone before pretty much anyone else, arrive first at the anomaly fields and the artefacts they held, and get a hold of some of the deeper stashes he knew about off the top of his head.

Reaching to top of the embankment he found the old dual railway track. A thick coating of rust on the top confirmed no train has passed by in many years or – more correctly – the design artists had a sense of detail.

The first stash was apparently stuffed into the exhaust of the huge diesel-electric locomotive in front of him. He climbed the ladder and walked along the top until he met the diesel-stained pipes that made up the exhaust system for the locomotive. Bending over to reach in and grab the chemical suit he paused at the sound of gunfire. Satisfied it was healthy distance away from him he managed to grab the rubber material and pull it out. There didn't seem to be an anomaly detector remaining in the pipe, so he checked and found it was wrapped up in the chemical suit.

The suit would be awful to wear but he could guarantee he would die a quick death without it if he went anywhere near the gas anomalies in the Garbage or the fruit punch anomalies commonly found in enclosed spaces looking for artefacts. He just needed a gas mask to go with it.

o0o0o

" _So, a Mosin-Nagant M91/30, a PU scope, a curved sniper bolt handle and forty rounds of my cheapest 7.62x54mmR ammo."_

After going through all the motions of informing her about the Zone, the trader Sidorovich could apparently recommend a loadout based on how much you wanted to spend and some personal preferences, but with only 1000 rubles the pickings were incredibly tough. For a "sniper rifle" the only option in this price range was a Mosin-Nagant, a bolt action rifle introduced into Imperial Russian service in the 1880s and stayed around with the Soviets with some slight modification all the way up to the 1940s when it was replaced by the SKS and then the AK-47. The 3.5x scope that went with it was almost as archaic as the rifle, but the ammo was at least guaranteed to work most of the time.

Apparently, the NPC traders normally operated on supply and demand, increasing prices when items got popular and dropping prices when items weren't, but this was being disabled for the first few weeks of the game in Cordon. It obviously would have been impossible to buy anything with the rush at the start of the game if they hadn't.

"Yeah, I'll take it," replied Sinon.

Despite being on the surface and not facing Sidorovich in his overcrowded bunker, the rifle with its accessories and two little paper wrapped bundles appeared in front of her waiting for her to grab them. The game hadn't prompted her to give any money to Sidorovich but she assumed the game automatically did that, leaving her with only twenty rubles to rub together.

" _Good hunting, stalker_."

Deftly loading each or the brown lacquered cartridges one by one and chambering a round, it felt comforting and secure to hold it in her hands; protection from a violent past. The ability to do violence onto other that could do her or loved one's harm. A curse that brought her years of trouble.

Her PDA put her first mission about twenty minutes' walk to the east.

o0o0o

It took him fifteen minutes to get to the next stash, following the railway tracks towards the forest that bordered Cordon and then up the hill where the tracks met a tunnel. Having expended two magazines on a pack of dogs and only having one left he felt increasing worried to be so lightly armed and was anxious to get his hands on some decent firepower.

The rifle was apparently in a tree and came with four loaded magazines.

Kirito checked the stash note Argo had written:

 _014792 – AKM rifle and four magazines, second branch up a tree fifteen metres north-east of the low y-shaped tree with the soldier's corpse up against it._

The six-letter grid reference gave him a 100 by 100 metre area to search. Thankfully in a forest of mostly straight pines and the occasional anomaly distorted tree, the y-shaped tree with the corpse was pretty distinctive.

The climb up the tree was easy and he found the gun secured by its sling wrapped around a branch and the magazines taped to the stock. Leaving the rest taped in place, he pulled one magazine off, rocked it into the gun with a small click, and then pulled and released the charging handle, chambering a round. Satisfied he could fight off more than blind dogs he slung the rifle over his back and shimmied down the tree.

The rifle was quickly in his hands though as he saw the man with red hair waiting at the bottom of the tree for him.

"Uh, hi," he said, putting his hands up in the air.

o0o0o

The rifle kicked like a bitch but quite satisfyingly it almost immediately dropped the mutant boar. The sound had been sharp on her ears. The action felt clunky as she worked the bolt handle, ejecting the spent casing before pushing a new round home. Finding the next target, she absent-mindedly noted the scope had a good crusting of brown gunk around the edge of the lens before the reticle lined up on the next boar. The boar had finally realised it was under attack and was getting to its feet. She pulled the trigger.

With a 148-grain ball round removing some of it's grey matter it slumped over and jerked slightly.

"Ah crap," she muttered as three more shapes revealed themselves through the brush.

There weren't three mutant boars as she had though, but six. Working the action she dropped another before reaching into her pocket for some more loose ammo and inserting it into the magazine bring up her magazine count to three before trying to work the action.

"Oh crap," she said with a bit more panic this time before giving the bolt handle a hard push but finding it wouldn't go forward.

Turning the rifle over slightly to look under the scope and into the action she could see the problem instantly: rim lock. As a very antiquated design, the Mosin-Nagant used rimmed cartridges. All cartridges have a rim so they can be extracted from the chamber after firing, but on the rimmed design the rims were protruding rather than recessed like on more modern cartridges. If they weren't loaded correctly into the magazine they caught on eachother.

With three angry boars about to run her down she flipped the rifle over and tried disengaging the latch that held the fixed magazine shut before realising the boars were actually really damn close and she needed to leg it, fast.

Seeing a tree that looked climbable she ran, rifle in hand before making a dash up the side as fast as she could with the mutants on her heels. After a few seconds breather she looked down from her perch and found three very angry boars circling. With a few grunts they gave a tree a good sniff and a nudge before deciding to wait her out.

Thankfully, they didn't understand the power of firearms.

o0o0o

The Rookie Village was still packed when Sinon got back but the crowd had died down enough for her to actually set foot in Sidorovich's bunker. Down the winding staircase and behind a cage wall, he was about what she had expected from the man; fat, balding and surrounded by his various wares.

"What do you want, stalker?"

"I did the job," she replied, quickly having preferred the convenience of voice interaction.

"Good, good, here's your payment," he said, handing her a bundle of cash. "Six-hundred, as promised. Is there anything you need?"

"Yeah, what other jobs have you got?"

Sidorovich scratched his chin.

"Well, now you're demonstrated you can perform some basic work, would you like something a bit more challenging?"

Sinon nodded.

"Well, I've got clients looking for some artefacts, I've got a package I need delivered to the 100 Rad Bar in Rostok, and a man who ran off with my last package who needs to be disposed of and if possible, I want my package back. I have more difficult missions that will require you to put a crew together to complete as well if you're up for it."

She didn't know anyone just yet, so the more complex missions were out. She had no experience with artefacts though, so it might be a good learning experience.

"I need a jellyfish, a battery and a soul artefact. I'll give you sixteen-hundred for each."

Pulling out her PDA she checked the in-built Zone encyclopedia for more info on each artefact. Each could apparently be detected with the most basic artefact detectors, but soul only formed in chemical anomalies, so she'd need a chemical suit and gas mask while the others formed in the less dangerous gravity and electric anomalies.

"I guess I'll take the jellyfish contract."

Sidorovich shook his head.

"This isn't an exclusive contract; my artefact jobs are open contract. First in with the artefact gets the money."

It made sense.

"Right, I need a detector then."

* * *

 **181102 - Minor rewording.  
**


	3. Chapter 2 Or Maybe Not

Hopefully this fills in the differences between this and canon.

* * *

 **Stalker Online**

 **Chapter Two:**

 **Or Maybe Not**

"Look, I just wanted some advice."

Kirito gauged the man carefully with the muzzle of his rifle.

Player killing or "pk'ing" was simply expected in the world of Stalker. There were no safe zones, and anyone was fair game. The only things immune to damage were some of the traders like Sidorovich or the bartender at the 100 Rads. This was purely on the basis they were critical to progressing the game's plot.

He couldn't see any obvious trap here though, but he shouldn't let his guard down regardless.

"Right, and why me?" he asked.

"Well, I saw you're pretty confident you know your way around. It's obvious you're a beta tester and I was hoping you could give me some pointers," he replied, hands still above his head.

Kirito's eye narrowed at the man.

"Were you… following me?" he asked. Kirito couldn't think of a good explanation for the man noticing that unless he had.

"Uh – no, I was out here looking about before my teammates logged in and I saw you found two stashes in less than ten minutes, and you knew exactly where they were." The man tried to give him a reassuring smile.

Thinking about it, Kirito was pretty sure there wasn't anywhere someone could wait and see him find both stashes.

"There's no way you can know that unless you followed me."

The man grimaced, caught in a lie.

"Well… I followed you for a little bit," he replied before giving a weak smile. "I do mean it when I was hoping for some tips though."

Kirito lowered his rifle.

"And what is your name?" he asked as the man slowly lowered his hands.

"Klein," he replied slightly nervously, eyeing the rifle Kirito was still cradling. "You?"

"Kirito. You know – I might not be a beta tester. Argo is selling stash locations back in the village."

"Argo?" asked Klein. "That one of the traders?"

"No, it's one of the beta testers. She made a list of loads of stashes during the beta and is selling them."

"Oh," he replied simply before having a moment of realisation. "Ah – but you wouldn't know her unless you were in the beta!"

o0o0o

"Do you know where I can find some gravity anomalies?" she asked.

The NPC was named Wolf. It was sometimes very difficult to tell in this game who was or wasn't an NPC, the actions of many of them was very organic; they went to sleep, ate food, and sat around and chatted with players and NPCs. Sidorovich had mentioned Wolf as being an old hand who trained up rookies with simple jobs and tips. He was also the de-facto NPC leader in the village.

"Over the hill a little bit over that way –" he said, jerking his head in the direction "– is a rubbish dump. The place is a good anomaly field for rookies to start on. There's not much there though, it's been stripped clean. You might have some luck if you try right after an emission though."

Sinon nodded in understanding; Sidorovich had explained the emissions that scoured the Zone clean of most above-ground life every so often.

"Are there any other gravity anomaly fields nearby?"

"Hmm, there's often a few around Cordon, particularly beyond the railway line. If you go further than that you'll hit the Garbage; plenty of anomalies of all sorts there, but the area is infested with bandits. To the west you'll find the swamps. Again, lots of anomalies but also like the Garbage with loads of bandits and then loads of mutants on top of that."

"Uh, thanks," she replied to which the NPC just nodded slightly. She wasn't sure if thanking NPC's was necessary or had any impact on the game, but it didn't take much effort to do so. Still, she felt slightly silly doing it, thinking that others might find her strange for doing it.

She wasn't sure she wanted to venture into the Swamps or the Garbage just yet; both seemed to be beyond her skill from the sounds of it. The northern end of Cordon did sound like an option though she thought as she walked out of town again.

o0o0o

They'd managed to climb up onto one of the roofs in the village where they could see many people enter and leave the village. There was the occasional sound of gunfire in the distance and the sound of dogs barking. Sometimes a person would be carried back into the village by a friend covered in blood seeking medical treatment, other would come back lamenting their fortune or lack of it with artefacts and other valuable items in hand.

Aiko wasn't really sure how to formulate words to describe how she had felt in those few seconds. Terror primarily, but there was also much more there.

"It was so difficult to tell myself it wasn't real right then and there," she explained as Yuuki held her hand in comfort. "It happened so quickly and… it just felt too real."

Yuuki wrapped her up in a comforting hug again. There wasn't much she could do to refute how real this world felt, but she could reassure her that she wasn't dead.

"How about we log out for now and take a break. We can go visit mum," suggested Yuuki.

"Yeah, sure," replied Aiko.

The standard menu options were accessed through the PDA so she pulled it out and navigated to the menu, only to find the logout button greyed out.

"You seeing this?" Aiko asked, inclining the screen of her PDA towards her sister.

Yuuki didn't look up, she just frowned at her own PDA.

"You mean – ?" she asked before looking up and seeing Aiko's PDA matched hers. "Yeah, I can't log out."

"Hmm," hummed Aiko before making a suggestion: "there must be some other way to access the menu, like if you lose your PDA."

Browsing to the help menu she brought up the game manual and looked it up. The manual said she had to make a certain hand motion and that would enable her to bring up the PDA-less menu. Giving it a try the menu immediately popped up but the logout option was still greyed out.

o0o0o

Taking a look at the garbage dump Sinon got her first good look at an anomaly. It was just a slight pulsating distortion in mid-air and her detector would beep furiously as she got closer. Like the NPC Wolf had suggested, the artefact indicator light on her detector didn't do anything; either nothing had spawned yet in the anomaly field or whatever had spawned in this field had already been found. Probably the latter given the number of players logging on and how close it was to the starting area.

Picking up a stone she gave it a good throw. The anomaly made a thump noise and kicked up some dust as the stone passed through its general proximity.

"Huh," said Sinon curiously before throwing another rock.

Pulling out her PDA she tried to figure out what direction she needed to go. She could just walk north, but alternatively could head back to the village and follow the road north. Having already wandered off the track and met loads of mutants, she reasoned there might be less on the presumably more well-travelled road, saving her ammo and time needed to put them down.

As she walked, she couldn't help but think how marvellous this world was. It was staggering to think how far games had come. The NPCs were lifelike and (almost) conversed like real people, the graphics were incredible… It was overwhelming sometimes. It was a world where she was never at risk, where no one could do her harm, yet should could experience things.

Following the road, she began to hear gunfire up ahead and as she got close the sound of gunfire began to intensify. Moving more cautiously, she decided to continue to follow the general route of the road but a few dozen meters into the grass and the overgrown fields which she hoped would provide some concealment.

Occasionally she could hear some very loud cracks like thunder. She wasn't exactly sure she but thought they might be grenades or some other explosive.

Approaching a bus stop in the soviet brutalist style, Sinon carefully peered around the corner using the cast concrete walls as cover. Maybe four-hundred meters ahead she could see muzzle flashes as two groups fought it out under a damaged bridge of some sort. She couldn't make out who was fighting who in distance, so she raised her rifle to her shoulder and used the 3.5x scope to get a better look.

3.5x magnification wasn't very much, particularly when compared to a decent set of binoculars, but it was enough for her to make out the warring parties. One group were wearing the distinct clothing of stalkers; faded jeans, polyester jackets and a mismatch of outdated weapons. The other group were clearly the military with their camouflage uniforms, body armour, helmets and modern AK-type rifles.

She watched as one of the soldiers threw what was clearly a grenade at a pair of stalkers who had managed to use the abandoned construction equipment as cover to approach the well defended army position. One of the stalkers grabbed the grenade and pulled his arm back in a throwing motion when it exploded with a faint flash of light. A loud crack followed a second or so later.

Little pieces of the stalker who tried to throw the grenade back landed on the ground a dozen meters away, the other stalker screamed with his hands over his bloody face as he started to bleed out, peppered with frag from the grenade.

Sinon didn't know who these stalkers were, but the army were apparently the enemy of all stalkers and they were blocking her path north. Helping the unknown stalkers out seemed like a reasonable idea so she climbed up to the top of the bus stop and laid down prone on its roof in what she felt was a good firing position.

Looking through her scope she could only see three stalkers remaining. They weren't advancing, just taking cover behind some rusting earthmoving equipment. They occasionally took pot shots at the soldiers, clearly trying to come up with a plan of attack that could account for most of their numbers now dead.

From her position though she had a pretty decent overwatch which gave her a decent shot on some of the soldiers who were – from the perspective of the pinned down stalkers – in pretty good cover. Making her first choice she lined up the reticle with the man's chest she squeezed the trigger. Like before the rifle kicked hard, and the reticle jumped.

When she regained her sight picture she found the soldier unharmed, but perhaps crouching lower behind his cover. There was a small cloud of powdered concrete though, from the location it seemed the bullet had landed about a foot too low.

"Oh." It just occurred to her that at this distance the bullet would probably drop noticeably.

The soldiers didn't appear to have realised they were being targeted by a sniper. Perhaps the soldier she had targeted had just presumed it was a close – but no close enough – shot from the occasional bursts of fire the pinned stalkers gave off.

Working the bolt to chamber a new cartridge and taking aim again she put the crosshairs a foot above the neck of the soldier. If she had underestimated the drop it would mean the bullet goes through the man's torso and if she had overestimated it, the bullet would go through the man's head.

It did.

The man's head popping open like a watermelon was dramatic enough that his fellows noticed it. Almost immediately they began to lay down suppressing fire in the direction of the pinned down stalkers. One of the men shouted at another and pointed up the hill, causing the man being shouted at to immediately start scrambling up the embankment to the destroyed railway bridge.

Quickly reloading, Sinon took a shot at him and missed, the bullet landing slightly to his right. The man momentarily paused his scramble and slid down a few meters before making another go at it, only faster this time. Before she could work the bolt and line up for another shot the man had taken cover behind a railway bogie.

As she turned her rifle on another soldier in the pass she wasn't sure what happened next. All of the sudden the soldiers shifted their fire from the stalkers taking cover behind the excavator to her position on top of the bus stop.

As chunks of concrete started to chip off the side of the bus and supersonic cracks flew overhead stop she tried to sink lower behind the ballistically inadequate rim on the top of the shelter.

"Ahhh!"

One of the bullets had found its mark, grazing her in a line from her shoulder and down her back. It was a sharp burning sensation, like someone had run a hot poker down her back. Panicking, she tried to roll off the roof while staying low and out of the soldier's crosshairs. Her rifle hit her in the face as it made contact with the rim on the roof and then she went over the side.

She screamed when she hit the ground, landing on her left arm. The burning on her back was insignificant to what felt like a bone or two in her arm breaking. The fire continued to pepper the bus shelter but curled up on the ground cradling her arm the very slight rise of the hill protected her from their fire. It didn't stop the rain of concrete fragments however.

Sinon couldn't figure out what was happening, the pain threshold in the game had clearly been advertised as minor – yet this was far beyond that, excruciating really.

The gun fire quickly died off, their target no longer visible. She could barely spare a thought to the stalkers she had been covering as she gingerly cradled her arm as she got off her side and onto her knees.

She wasn't sure how long she had taken as the pain in her arm became a dull throb and she tried to stand on her feet.

Suddenly there was the sound of boots on gravel as a soldier dressed in camouflage stepped around the corner of the bus stop, his AK-74U raised and pointed at her. A moment later a second soldier joined him.

He opened his mouth to say something to her when there was a sudden flash of light.

o0o0o

"So how far did you guys get in the beta period?" asked Klein. "If you – uh – don't mind my asking."

After a few pointers Kirito had found himself actually warming up to the guy. He could sometimes be grating but he was a quick learner and he certainly wasn't a video game novice. He just had to point out the particulars of STALKER Online and how it differed from more conventional games.

"Like plot-wise or do you mean how deep we got into the Zone?"

"Ehhh – both?" he asked.

"The main story missions were deactivated – we never got to try any of them out. As for how deep we got, we never got past the Brain Scorcher and we couldn't get into the X-Labs." Kirito paused in thought for a moment. "Some of the guys who had played the originals told me that the Brain Scorcher was deactivated in one of the main story missions, so it sort of makes sense that they might not open up the centre of the Zone."

Kirito shook his head.

"Argo thought it was so beta-testers couldn't take full advantage of the foreknowledge because there's still a good quarter of the most dangerous part of the Zone still unknown to us. No one could come up with a good idea for why the X-Labs were inaccessible – we weren't even sure they existed until someone managed to partially clip through one of the doors and get a screencap of it."

"Um – X-Labs?" asked Klein with confusion.

"Underground science labs where the scientists who accidentally made the Zone worked. I understand they're pitch-black, full of the worst sorts of mutants and supposed to be really difficult to clear."

"Heh – sounds like fun," said Klein with a smirk. "The boys and I will have to give a few a go."

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Klein broke it: "It's weird not to have stats, levels, traits and such."

"Yeah, I think this is the first RPG I've ever played that didn't have them. It's just pure skill," he replied leaning back against a tree. "Kind of refreshing actually."

Klein made a noise of realisation.

"Ah! It just occurred to me, no grinding for hours on end to level up!" Klein fist-pumped the air in glee. "I'm pretty sure grinding just exists to make people have to keep buying a subscription or go pay to win."

Klein smiled.

"This world is amazing."

Kirito couldn't really disagree with the sentiment.

"Don't you have a pizza waiting for you or something?" asked Kirito.

"Oh yeah, what's the time?"

Kirito pulled out his PDA; game time and the day and night cycle was linked to Japan Standard Time. When it was daylight in real life it was daylight in the game.

"Quarter past five," he replied.

Looking up he could see the sun through the hazy clouds and pine trees. It was probably another hour before it started getting dark.

"Yeah, I probably should," said Klein. "Hey – you're pretty good, you want to join my clan? We're Fuurinkazan. We won't say no to a skilled hand. Come on, it will be fun."

The reality of the Zone had quickly pushed him out of his comfort zone and into working with a group. Small unit tactics of suppressing fire, flanking and mauver were impossible as an individual and required considerable teamwork to pull off against a skilled opponent or a numerically superior one. That said, it wasn't necessary for the first part of the game and he had found himself during the beta filtering in and out of other people's teams, never staying for long or tying himself down.

The offer was appreciated, but he was going to have to decline.

"Nah – sorry dude," he replied slightly awkwardly. "Teammates aren't really my thing."

"Ah – well, too bad. Can I get your contact details anyway?" asked Klein, waving his PDA about.

He didn't have a good reason to say no so he handed them over.

"Huh – that'd odd, I can't press the log out button."

That got Kirito's attention.

"What's wrong with it?"

"It's greyed out."

Frowning, Kirito pulled out his PDA and took a look as well.

"Same here – bit of a strange bug really," said Kirito with a note of curiosity. "Try asking an admin to kick you."

"There are actually admins in a no-hold-barred game like this?" asked Klein surprised.

"Well yeah," replied Kirito, thinking back to an incident during the beta. "There was a guy during the beta who placed loads of AP mines in Cordon and started sniping people from the hillside as they respawned. Went on for a good hour or two before the mods realised no one could get to cover or advance through the mines, so they kicked him. You have to do something illegal or do some serious griefing to get a kick though."

"Huh…" said Klein in surprise. "I think I must be doing something wrong, I can't find any sort of admin contact here."

Kirito swiped to his contacts page and looked down the admittedly short contact list.

"It should be here," he said with a frown. "I had a general admin contact on my contact list all through the beta."

Looking up Klein appeared to be trying to pull his own head off.

"That's not going to work," he said before explaining how the NerveGear worked. "We should get back to the Rookie village. We might be able to flag down one of the mods there."

Klein following him, they left the forest and heaved towards the embankment, rather than go up the side though, Kirito lead him to a tunnel with a small creek running through it. Kirito halted at the entrance.

"What's up?" asked Klein at the halt.

"The tunnel quite often has anomalies in it – they change pretty much every blowout, so you have to take care."

In the darkness of the tunnel it was hard to tell if there was anything there. Kirito unrolled his chemical suit and removed the detector wrapped up in it.

"What's the trick then?"

Turning on the detector Kirito turned to face him.

"You got a detector?" Klein shook his head. "Just tread carefully, go slowly. Throw bolts if you've got them at anything you think might be an anomaly, ideally with a torch."

"You got one?" asked Klein.

"Nope, saving up for some more important things. I've got some bolts and some junk though."

"Ah – what about your detector?" he asked, nodding towards the detector in hand.

"It will tell you there are anomalies nearby – up to maybe ten or fifteen metres – but doesn't give you a direction."

"I thought that detector did?" he asked, referring to the ring of unlit LEDs around the edge of the front end of the detector.

"It gives you a direction for finding artefacts, not anomalies."

Klein made a noise of understanding.

"I guess I should get one soon."

"If you can get to the anomaly fields right after an emission artefact hunting is a good way to make money. Just remember the base detector is garbage and is only really useful for detecting anomalies which you should be able to see with your eyes most of the time. They're worthless for finding artefacts."

"Guess I have a lot to save up for then."

"Yeah, don't waste your money," said Kirito before waving his hand and starting to walk again. "Some anomalies – "

Whatever else he was going to say was cut off by a flash of light.

o0o0o

Asuna wandered through the town. It was beautiful in its own way. It was obvious someone, or a team of someones, had spent a long time working on the fine details of the village and surrounding countryside.

She wasn't sure she actually wanted to play this game properly, she felt should could get plenty of enjoyment just exploring. But the game apparently didn't have an option of "just" exploring; whatever she did the wildlife or worse would probably try to kill her. Still, that just meant she would have to start over again. It might just be a minor inconvenience.

She was about to wander out of the village having finished giving it a good look over when she noticed the mood had quickly begun to change.

Though no one ever intended for her to take over her father's company – that was for her older brother – Asuna did have plenty of experience reading people and crowds. There were whispers and lot of people worriedly looking at their phones… no, _their PDAs._ The village too seemed to be becoming more and more crowded, more and more people were spawning before looking around in confusion.

She wasn't sure what had happened, and she was about to ask when the world suddenly went dark, the sun quickly disappearing over the horizon. It was surreal to watch the half-moon rise in the span of twenty seconds. People gasped and pointed at the sight, their confusion and their PDAs momentarily forgotten.

"It has to be an event," muttered a nearby man to his small circle of friends.

The Zone took on a new life at night, but she couldn't enjoy it due to the large ghostly apparition that had appeared on the edge of the village.

o0o0o

"What the…?" exclaimed Kirito. "A teleport?"

Klein was only a few meters away from him, looking around in confusion.

"Does this game normally have teleporting?" asked Klein after getting his bearings and spotting Kirito.

"No… I don't think so anyway," he replied.

"Hmm, at least we're where we were trying to get too."

It seemed Klein was right, they were back in the Rookie village. Most of the beta testers including himself had pressed deep into the Zone as quickly as they could, so the sight was not immediately familiar to him.

Looking around, Kirito could see more people being teleported in. If he hadn't been subject to it himself, he would have just presumed they were just new players logging on, but he could see they were armed with a mismatch of different non-starter weapons betraying the fact they were probably in the middle of a mission when they ended up back here.

The sky suddenly went dark and the moon quickly rose up into the sky causing people to start chattering away in surprise.

"You think this might be an event?" asked Klein.

It seemed likely, Kirito couldn't think of anything else that might have caused this. Forcing people to stay by disabling the logout button seemed to be in pretty poor taste though. He could already imagine it would cause no small controversy.

"Perhaps; it does seem an odd way to do it though."

"Yeah, I'm probably going to have an irate pizza guy at my door pretty soon."

A hushed silence fell on the crowd as a blue-grey light started glowing from the small hill to the south that overlooked the village. Motes of light glowed and what looked like lines of static like what was once found in old TVs intermittently appeared. Then, a hologram came into focus, as tall as a small apartment block. The hologram was like those from the original Star Wars films; grainy, low resolution and difficult to make out.

But to Kirito the face was clear; it was that of Akihiko Kayaba, dressed in a lab coat and of unassuming appearance. But something felt wrong to Kirito.

"Welcome to my world." Almost everyone recognised the voice from the interviews, yet he still felt the need to explain. "I am Akihiko Kayaba and as of now I am the sole controller of the world in which you all now reside.

"Most of you by now have noticed the log-out button no longer functions. This is no bug, nor is it a mistake. No, this is a new feature in STALKER Online. You cannot leave and no one on the outside world can remove you. If they try, your NerveGear helmet kill you."

It took a few moments for the fact to dig in. The words were met with varied disbelief to people assuming he had misspoken and had meant your character would die. Other felt this was a prank in poor taste by the developer, or perhaps a hacker or disgruntled employee had implemented this as a joke.

Slowly panic began to build in the crowed as others began to consider it actually was possible.

"He's got to be joking," said Klein, putting him firmly in the "prank of poor taste" camp.

"No," replied Kirito darkly. "He's very capable of this."

NerveGear was beyond the wildest expectations of nearly every futurist or technologist on the planet. In Kirito's mind, Kayaba – as the leading engineer on the project – could have easily have implemented such a thing into the technology. Barely anyone understood what he had developed, even the engineers and scientist under him, so it was not too far fetched that he had included such a shocking secret into every device. It may not have even been a hardware solution, he could have "solved" the problem just with software and the hardware ordinarily needed to implement VR technology.

"No," muttered Klein, shaking his head in disbelief. "No way."

"Unfortunately, a number of friends or family in the physical world have disregarded my warning or were simply not aware of it, and now two-hundred and eighteen of our players are now dead."

The statement elicited gasps from the people who believed him and mutterings of disbelief from the rest. But Kayaba – having predicted the disbelief – made dozens of windows appear showing news channels from both Japan and abroad. In contrast to the low-fi holograms Kayaba had presented himself with, the video footage was in quality that was on par with any 4k or 8k tv in a normal Japanese home.

Kirito could see his local news channel in one of the boxes. The news station was broadcasting with a good quarter of their screen filled with a red and yellow scrolling banner warning people to no make any attempts to remove or tamper with the victim's NerveGear helmets. Though he couldn't hear anything the presenter was saying another smaller scrolling banner claimed there was already dozens of confirmed deaths all over Japan and that the speculative death toll was in the hundreds.

The dozens of news reports from across the globe seemed to be convincing more and more people, but a few detractors were still claiming it was still just a giant con. In a way Kirito could understand that; faking news footage was not a difficult task, it was just time consuming trying to make it look real.

"As you can see, the threat is very real," said the Kayaba hologram, gesturing to the floating windows. "As I speak the government and news agencies are going into overdrive to prevent any removal of my device. For now, it would seem the threat of being inadvertently killed by your loved ones has passed.

"Your goal now is to finish my game," said Kayaba before making a dramatic pause. "But, take note, if you die here, you will die out there."

o0o0o

"Unfortunately, a small number of our members did not get that warning in time, and tragically lost their lives as a result." There was no tragedy in Kayaba's tone.

Propped up against a wall of a decrepit building, all Sinon could think of was the man who tried to throw that grenade back. It was like the image was on replay and now she knew the man did not respawn back here in the village. He and his compatriot had died just short of the destroyed railway bridge and the narrow pass guarded by the army.

She could see it over and over; he pulled back his arm to throw, only for the grenade to explode. His arm disintegrated in the blast, shredded chunks of flesh and bones held together by sinew flying away, his body blown forward as his back and head were peppered with frag. She closed her eyes and tried to take calming, deep breaths, only to find the repeating image was more vivid with her eyes closed.

"Twelve dead, in addition to those already lost."

She wasn't sure what she was going to do. This world was supposed to be a way she could escape, a world where injuries and anything else another human could do to her did not matter. Where she could live free of real fear.

"Some of you may have simply gotten lucky and have discovered that the pain feels more… real. This is no mistake, the pain threshold settings have been removed, you must now understand that this world has consequences. For the sake of convenience though, doctors and medics can still rapidly heal you."

o0o0o

"The only way for you to escape this is to complete my game."

The crowd began to erupt in noise. Insults were thrown at the figure of Kayaba, others desperately tried to convince their friends and allies this was very real or all just a scam.

Klein looked towards Kirito, the expression on his face of conflicted disbelief. It was clear the man did not want to believe all this but was having a hard time trying not to.

"Can he really do that?" asked Klein.

Kirito frowned sadly.

"He's a genius, evidently a psychotic genius. I… I think so."

Klein's expression tightened, he seemed unsure of himself.

"If you take out your PDA and scroll to the statistics tab you will now find a list of who is still alive, and who is not."

Taking out his PDA, Klein navigated to the statistics tab and found several lists. Listed were things like his own rank compared to other players (6,032/11,438), his own rank compared to players and NPCs (7,321/14,302), general gameplay stats about himself and finally a list of all players. Scrolling through the list he did not immediately recognise any player handles but he did recognise the majority of the causes of death: "outside interference".

"Finally, I would ask that you all accept the 'Mirror Mirror' box on your PDA."

At Kayaba's words, a small window appeared on his screen containing the words "Mirror, Mirror" and a simple "okay" action-box below it. Pushing the button his PDA's screen instantly turned into a mirror surface. Staring back at him was his face.

There were a few gasps in the crowd before it clicked in his mind; he was staring at his real face, not that of his avatar. Looking up he could see the faces in the crowd were considerably less idealised and many people looked considerably younger.

Turning to Kirito he found a boy with black hair in his mid-teens.

"You!" said Klein, pointing at the boy. "Kirito?"

Kirito looked down at his PDA again and then back up to Klein.

"This is really happening…" mumbled Kirito.

"And now, it is complete. Good luck, players," finished the figure of Kayaba before winking out.

The sun and the moon again spun until the sun was just peaking the horizon, slowly setting.

Looking up at Klein, Kirito could see the man hadn't fudged his age or appearance too much. His red hair was a slightly more natural ginger colour and shorter and his face slightly less handsome, but it was basically the same. Kirito couldn't say the same for himself.

"Damn, you're like…" said Klein.

"Fourteen," replied Kirito, cringing.

"Huh, isn't this game supposed to be 17+?"

"Yeah, but when has that ever stopped anyone?"

Klein paused to consider the statement for a fraction of a section.

"Yeah, fair point. Didn't stop me as a kid."

The crowd was now in a panic. People were shouting, other exclaiming is disbelief. Suddenly, there was a single gunshot. A few people screamed as heads turned to the noise.

"Holy shit, why would you do that?" someone shouted.

The comments grew, and it became clear that someone didn't believe Kayaba and decided to try and prove it.

"We need to get out of here right now," said Kirito quickly. "Everything is about to go to Hell in a handbasket."

Klein's eye wide at the statement as he thought it over.

"Yeah, I need to find my friends."

"No, we need to go now," repeated Kirito.

Klein seemed a little shocked at the statement.

"No dude, I can't leave my friends to deal with this shit by themselves."

Kirito was worried now. It probably wouldn't be long before someone else followed the last person example, only decided to take it up a few notches and take a few other people with themselves on the way out.

Klein shook his head.

"Don't worry about it. You go, I'll find my friends and get them out of here," said Klein.

"Look – uh…"

"Don't worry," said Klein, holding out his hand.

Kirito grabbed it and Klein gave him a firm hand shake.

"Where are you going anyway?"

"Rostok," he replied quickly as Klein let go.

"I'll see you there, dude."

Klein left Kirito standing there as he disappeared into the crowd in search of his friends.

o0o0o

Inside the bounds of the village, neither Aiko or Yuuki had been teleported about.

Aiko couldn't help but wonder in horror how close to the margin her sister had been when she had died at the hands of that bandit. Would it have only taken a few minutes delay and they would have both been dead for good? They could have been the first in game fatalities: "Killed by a bandit with an SKS in Cordon" would be next to their names on the list of deceased players.

She had no idea what she was going to do though. This game world was already daunting in its themes and enemies, how long would it take them to complete it? Six months, a year? Or maybe more?

Their mum wasn't well. A horrible though came to Aiko's mind: would their mum still even be alive when they got out of here? Would even they?

Yuuki was firmly gripping her hand, staring out at the horizon from their perch on top of the house.

The image of her sister dying like that ran through her mind again. At that moment she swore she would protect her sister with her dying breath.

o0o0o

Asuna wasn't sure this was all real. The idea that this man Kayaba could kill them like that just seemed too outlandish. She was sure that from the initial conception, all the way to manufacturing and programming, someone would have noticed. Yet, deep in her mind was a doubt, the way people were reacting and the utterly amazing technology she had witnessed today left a doubt in her mind.

She wasn't sure what she was going to do long term, but right now all she needed to do was wait. If this was a giant lie – a con – it wouldn't be long before her mother pulled the NerveGear helmet off her head and demanded she explain why she wasn't at dinner.

o0o0o

Sinon found herself working on automatic. It felt like she was disconnected from the world and her body as she rushed about trying to find the doctor.

When she heard the gunshot she didn't jump, she just pulled out her Makarov. The pain in her arm as it hung loosely didn't matter as she held the handgun in her dominant hand in the low-ready position. She had lost her rifle in the teleport and wasn't sure what she needed t do about getting a new weapon. What she was sure about though was getting out of town.

Suddenly, the world felt all the more dangerous. Nobody could be trusted. Nowhere was safe.

* * *

 **181102 - Minor rewording.**


	4. Interlude 1 Pyrrhic Victory

The first interlude. Most interludes will cover things outside the game.

* * *

 **Stalker Online**

 **Interlude One:**

 **Pyrrhic Victory**

D+3

Detective Masuo Kobayashi of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Public Security Bureau was waiting for a call.

The last few days had been hectic. His department, the Public Security Bureau, was primarily in charge of investigating cybercrime and conducting counter-terrorism operations. The _STALKER Online Incident_ as it had been first dubbed the media and quickly picked up in general parlance was a nightmare of a case to work and easily one of the worst cybercrimes ever committed. There was even serious debate to declare it terrorism even though the motives were yet unknown.

The death toll shot past the three hundred mark this morning and preparations were beginning to try move the victims into newly prepared locations so they could more easily be monitored by medical personnel. It was a difficult task however, fraught with danger and unknown.

The investigation was running into bureaucratic hurdles as Japan lacked a national level policing agency. Yes, there was the National Police Agency, but the NPA lacked any operational forces of its own; it was just an administrative organ.

So, the task of coordinating the national police response to the crisis fell on the shoulders of Japan's largest police department: the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, and fore fronted by their Public Security Bureau whose main tasks were counter-terrorism and cybercrime.

This was compounded by the fact the Incident was not limited just to Japan or Japanese nationals. Despite the statement by the developer that the game was supposed to initially only be available in Japan, some people from South Korea and China had managed to get a hold of a copy and – using a VPN – spoofed their IP address. Others had flown to Japan just to take part in what was thought to be a defining moment in videogaming – it would still be a defining moment, just for all thee wrong reasons. Others caught up included several members of United States Forces Japan, further complicating the matter.

They had already managed to unofficially bring in the Self-Defence Force's cyber-"defence" signals units to back them up and help them deal with the deluge of signals intelligence they needed to sort through. This morning – shortly after the morning's casualty report – they had managed to match up an IP address that was connected to the STALKER Online servers to a property connected to Akihiko Kayaba through the man's ex-girlfriend.

They were certain Kayaba was still connected to the STALKER Online servers and manipulating the game world in whatever grand plan the man had presumably cooked up. Catching him was key to figuring out what he had done and stopping this mess in its tracks.

The phone rang, and Masuo picked it up.

"Sir, I got the warrant," said the voice of his prosecutor, Touma Goto.

"Thankyou," he replied before hanging up and dialling a new number.

Special Unit – Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's assault team – had been on standby since they had gotten the intelligence in anticipation of the warrant. It was simply a matter of calling ahead so they could make final preparations and the detective met them down at the carpark, hitching a ride with them to the target building.

The armoured vans of Special Unit ran with lights and sirens on, quickly allowing them to navigate through the busy Tokyo traffic, but as they got close to the supposedly abandoned home near the edge of the metropolis they turned them off as to not give themselves away.

Masuo made a final call.

"What's the situation, Sergeant?" he asked.

"Clear, sir, no activity in the home I can see from street level," replied the calm voice of Sergeant Fujita. "Whoever is inside has no idea we're coming."

"Good, we'll be there in a few moments," he replied before hanging up.

Coming around the corner he could see the building he'd seen in the photos that morning. A silver hatchback was parked at the other end of the street and he could see the female figure of Sergeant Fujita in plain clothes stepping out of it.

The suspect building was run down and a typical example of a post-war home with two levels. The homes on either side and the rest of the street were little better. Pulling up in front of the house, the men and women of Special Unit quickly piled out of the three armoured vans. By the time he got out of the vehicle himself their pointman was already swinging his battering ram, striking the door near the three locks.

The door cracked but did not give way. Undeterred, the pointman gave the door another good solid hit, shattering the door around the locks, and the team poured into the building.

"Front room clear!" called a voice on the right as he stepped through the front door.

"Dining room clear!" called another.

The first voice called out again: "Kitchen, stairs clear!"

"Ground floor clear. Move up the stairs!" called the Special Unit commander.

The man on point walked up the split-level staircases backwards with his rifle up, enabling him to cover himself from a potential threat at the top of the stairs. When he had enough height to see the floor at the top was clear he motioned for his second to follow him up who covered him as he proceeded the rest of the way to the top.

"Stairs clear!"

Part of the team split of to guard the bottom floor while the rest and Detective Kobayashi followed.

Each room on this level was behind an interior door which they had no trouble kicking down.

"Sir, we got something!"

Following the commander into the largest room on the top floor, Masuo was shocked to find a figure on a hospital bed surrounded by medical equipment. The figure was wearing a NerveGear helmet no different than the example they had in their office on day one and was hooked up to what looked a bit like some sort of medical monitoring equipment and a large rack of various IV fluids. Closer inspection revealed the bags were computer controlled.

The figure was unmoving but clasped in its hand was an envelope. Masuo pushed through the small crowd of Special Unit officers and picked the letter up before opening it.

 _If you remove me they will die._

 _If you tamper with the helmet, the monitoring equipment or my computer, they will die._

 _You will be given a half-hour window to move the players. I will contact you with the details shortly. You will follow my precise directions during that time or they will die._

 _There is nothing you can do to change what will happen. Do not try me._

It was difficult to reconcile the fact they had their perpetrator in their hands, yet Akihiko Kayaba was so far away.

* * *

 **181102 - Minor rewording.**


	5. Chapter 3 Such is Life

This took a bit longer than I had planned. Note this is version e of this chapters. I just wasn't happy with it.

This chapter is supposed to help the reader get a feel as to what the average stalker is going through.

* * *

 **Stalker Online**

 **Chapter Three:**

 **Such is Life**

 **D+31**

Another emission.

Kirito ran full pelt towards the Rookie Village, hand on his rifle so it would stop hitting him as it bounced and dearly wishing he had just doubled back to the old farmstead instead of trying to make a run for the village.

The emission was getting closer, from the pounding in his head he guessed he only had a few minutes before it hit. Over the rise he could see the buildings that made up the small town.

Then he tripped, going face first into the shattered asphalt. Getting back to his feet, he knew he had done something to the palms of his hands and could feel where he had awkwardly landed on his rifle, but he couldn't stop to check. The rumbling was growing stronger and the light show emanating from the centre of the Zone getting brighter as he hit the edge of the village.

Racing into the nearest home he searched for the hatch that lead into the basement and quickly dropped down, carefully avoiding snagging his day pack on the narrow opening. The small basement was packed with other players, waiting out the emission.

Argo wasn't among their number, but that wasn't strange, there were dozens of hidey-holes in the Rookie Village you could take shelter in during an emission. It would have been luck to stumble onto hers. Her message had been confusing, but it was clear she had a job for him and he could track her down afterwards.

He wasn't sure how to react to the other stalkers; the stories he'd heard in Rostok about what had happened after he had left we not encouraging. There had been several suicides, a few murders, and then people tried to leave the area in fear.

None the less, he had maybe an hour he would have to spend with the dozen or so cramped into the small space. A few were chatting among their small groups, some were clearly loners and others looked almost catatonic. He wasn't sure he could strike up a conversation but as one of the loners eyed his clearly more valuable and advanced gear which betrayed the fortune Kirito had had in the Zone, and the fortune they had not, the answer was clear.

Sighing, he went to work inspecting his battered palms.

o0o0o

The atmosphere of the Rookie Village could only be described as fearful. The players sheltering in the village ranged from "on edge" to catatonic. The few that looked fit to fight were loitering in the centre of town or approximating guards at the village edge, armed with a mishmash of low tier weapons sprinkled with the odd AK.

The stories he had heard in Rostok hadn't painted a pleasant picture. Like he had predicted, the pickings quickly had grown thin in loot and artefacts, then people couldn't buy food off Sidorovich and turned to eating the local mutants. The mutants were edible – some were even delicious – but if you couldn't counter the inevitable radiation poisoning with anti-rad drugs or alcohol you'd be penalised for it through lower strength, slower healing and eventually death.

"Not many have gone as far as Rostok yet, though I saw a fair few in the train sheds in the Garbage," said Kirito.

Argo huffed.

"Most decided to take their chances in the swamps, a few went east."

"To the Darkscape?" he asked in surprise.

There wasn't exactly much in the Darkscape, except for a lack of cover from emissions. No loot, poor pickings for artefacts, lots of mutants and no traders. The only thing of note – and the only bit of decent cover in the area – was a bandit camp in the forest.

"That can't have gone well."

Argo stepped into the stairs that wound their way down into Sidorovich's bunker.

"Yeah, well, there's a lot of fresh zombies out there now."

Kirito grimaced.

"The Swamp isn't much better, though there's a bit more shelter and more loot."

"Yeah," replied Argo tiredly.

He didn't push the depressing topic.

"Is money going to be a problem?"

Argo scoffed and shook her head.

"No."

There were only a few people in Sidorovich's bunker buying supplies or selling loot so the wait was short.

"Have you got in mind what you want?"

"Not really," she replied. "You're the one pushing me to upgrade my kit."

A shotgun and nothing more than a leather jacket might be fine when dying was just an inconvenience, but it didn't cut it outside of town in their new reality.

"Well, an intermediate-calibre carbine then. Something light and compact, yet with decent range," he suggested. "How much you want to spend?"

"Eh –" Argo shrugged "– fifteen grand I guess for the gun, a bit more for some extras."

Fifteen was easy. Even the top tier players like himself could only spare about that much for a new rifle. Before trading in his old AKM, his AK-103 with a Kobra collimator sight and six magazines had cost about fourteen grand. Despite rarely leaving the safety of town Argo was going to be running some high-end gear.

"What about body armour?" Kirito pulled back the lapel of her leather jacket. Before Argo pushed his hand away he could see she was just wearing an undershirt and a bandoleer.

"It's –" she tried to say before being cut off.

"I'm not taking you anywhere without body armour. You'll buy a cheaper gun if we have to."

Argo gave him a disgruntled look.

"I've got more money."

Kirito had to wonder how much she'd managed to make selling information.

o0o0o

"This is fucked."

Kirito stopped and turned to overlook the village. Argo was clearly frustrated, and the decrepit village and its miserable inhabitants seemed to be the cause.

"Yeah," was all he could reply with. There was no disagreement that could be made about the current state of affairs. The far more cheerful and playful Argo he'd know in the beta was probably gone, at least for the moment. Maybe getting away from the Rookie Village and north to Rostok would be good for her.

"Come on, I'd like to get to the railyard before nightfall."

There was no point in loitering.

o0o0o

The supersonic crack of nearby gunfire had Kirito scrambling towards the drainage ditch on the side of the road. He reached behind himself to drag Argo into the ditch with him only to find she was already moving. Her movement was slightly exaggerated before she overbalanced and fell into cover. Joining her in the ditch he found her upright on her knees and her trenchcoal slightly muddied trying to identify the direction the gunfire was coming from as she absent-mindedly unfolded the stock on her carbine.

"It sounds like a PPSh," said Argo quickly.

It certainly could be, the long streams of fire sounded more like single sound than individual shots. Only a small handful of weapon had rates of fire that high.

"They're not hitting much either," he added.

The gunfire was way off, rounds were impacting several dozen metres to the left and right.

A heavier single thump was added to the noise of the PPSh.

"That's probably a Mosin."

There was another thump a few seconds later.

"Definitely bolt-action, off to the east," said Argo. "It has to be zombies; even the shittest shot in the Zone should be more accurate than this."

"Well, with shooting like this we should be able to take a look."

Should, because luck wasn't always on your side in the Zone.

Kirito took out a pair of small binoculars and carefully exposed his head to take a look. It didn't take long for him to find the drooling visage of a zombified teenaged girl with muddied and bloodied clothing and a PPSh about three-hundred metres away coming down a slight slope. Perhaps another fifty behind her was a man with a scoped hunting rifle fumbling with loose ammunition trying to reload, his brain damaged mind doing little to aid him. Both – as most zombified stalkers did – were firing from the hip.

"Right on the PPSh, the other guy has a hunting rifle though."

"Close enough," replied Argo as a few more round cracked over their heads.

At three-hundred metres the zombies probably wouldn't hit them if they made a run for it.

"We can run if you want," said Kirito. "But we could also use this as an opportunity to get you some practice. This is the first time you've been in combat since the beta, right?"

She nodded.

"You're the client, so it's ultimately your choice, but you probably should get some practice against a live enemy that can shoot at you while it's sort of safe to do so. There won't be much opportunity to do this past Rostok."

Argo looked a little ill at the thought before making up her mind.

"Okay," she replied. There was a slight edge to her voice.

The pair slowly crept up the side of the ditch on their bellies and peeked out.

"It won't be an easy shot with the _C-More_ sight and the distance is a bit further than what the _553_ was really design for but we have time."

The C-More was a red dot sight with no magnification designed for close ranged use. It was a reasonable pair for the SIG SG553 "Commando" carbine with its short barrel and reduced muzzle velocity.

"I'll call out adjustments," said Kirito as he lifted his binoculars and leaving his rifle to the side.

"You're not shooting?" asked Argo with surprise.

"I'm here if I need to be," he replied not taking his gaze away from the binoculars.

Taking a deep breath Argo lifter her carbine to her shoulder, flicked the fire selector from "safe" to "single" and looked down the sights. The zombies had stopped shooting in their direction, probably having lost interest in them when they had stopped moving about in clear view. They were still stumbling slowly in their direction however.

At three-hundred metres the two _MOA_ red dot obscured most of the target's head.

"Aim for the head –"

"I am," she mumbled back, her face squished against the stock of her carbine.

All she could think of a moment after pulling the trigger was how loud the short-barrelled carbine was as he ears softly rang. Guns had been loud in the beta but with the upper limit for pain removed it was actually painful to fire.

"Left a metre," said Kirito after watching the bullet kick up a sod of dirt.

"It landed a metre to the left, or I aim a metre to the left?"

"Uh – it landed a metre to the left," he clarified.

Aiming a metre to the right she fired again and watched the zombie stumble slightly.

"Hit, about half a metre low, got her in the gut."

Though a zombified stalker could bleed to death or could drown as their lungs filled with their own blood, they couldn't feel pain. What would be a debilitating gut shot for anyone else was a minor inconvenience for the zombie.

Argo didn't think about the fact this had once been a living person once upon a time as she aimed a metre to the right and half a metre high. She pulled the trigger.

"Miss."

The fact the head was swaying slightly side to side made the shot all that much harder.

Reacquiring a sight picture, she pulled the trigger again. There was no spurt of blood she could see at this distance as the zombie fell to its knees and then face forward to the ground.

"Good shot – alright, next one. You should be able to use the same holdover."

She lined up the dot again with the holdover point in her mind and fired. She though she had hit him for a second when he made a tiny jerk but then he kept stumbling forward.

"Close, you grazed him. Aim a little bit more to the right."

Another crack.

"Miss, again."

Firing, she thought she saw little fragments come off him this time before he crumpled to the ground.

"Nice shot," said Kirito as he moved into a crouch and began to take in their surroundings.

After making a quick three-sixty he grabbed his AK and stood up.

"We should probably loot them. It won't be a huge amount, but we might be able to get a thousand rubles of kit off them."

With time to think she wasn't sure he wanted to take a closer look but followed Kirito anyway, her carbine in her hands.

She wanted to curse her armour and its extra weight for causing her to overbalance and fall into the ditch when she had been running for cover but as they got closer to the exposed position where the corpses lay she began to feel more thankful for it. The plates on the front, back and sides would stop standard ball rounds from intermediate and full powered rifles even at very close range. Armour piercing ammo would be a problem eventually, but most people wouldn't be investing in it until they began running into Monolith soldiers or if they were intending to pick a fight with the military.

As Kirito paused to give to Zone another look over before moving up the hill to expose themselves she could see the garbage piles of the Garbage in the distance. It would begin getting dark in an hour or so and they'd want to be in a good defendable position by nightfall. Kirito had mentioned a few stalker camps set up in the Garbage they could shelter in before making it to Rostok tomorrow afternoon.

Satisfied no one was waiting for them to expose themselves, Kirito motioned to follow as he approached the first body. The figure was face first on the ground, the back of its neck blown out where her last round had hit slightly low and another on its lower back. There was a pool of dark blood running down the incline.

She almost gasped when Kirito rolled the figure over revealing the muddy and bloodied face of a girl within only a few years of herself. At that moment it was hard not to consider then who this girl had been, who had loved her and who she had loved in turn.

Argo stood stiffly there as Kirito gingerly ruffled though the pouches on her webbing, removing a single loaded PPSh drum magazine and an RGD-5 grenade. The PPSh the girl had once clasped in her hands was coated in a fine layer of red rust and few patches of mud. Kirito pocketed the girl's PDA before placing the grenade in Argo's hand.

"You never know when you'll find a grenade useful," he said as he moved onto the next corpse.

She found herself still clasping the grenade when she caught up with him a few minutes later, finding him removing the scope from a rusting hunting rifle of some kind. The zombie's head was popped open like a watermelon, fragments of bone and gore littering the ground.

o0o0o

They found themselves at one of the large railway sheds in the Garbage as the sun disappeared. Kirito had directed her to sling her rifle on her back before they stepped through the gate.

"They're pretty jumpy right now. I'd rather not get shot at someone who though we were bandits or something," he explained.

"Halt! Who goes there?"

Kirito had his hands up and clearly visible as a man in his twenties pointed an AK of some sort in their direction. She did the same, trying to look as unthreatening as possible.

"It's Kirito, I was here on a few days back. The girl behind me is Argo."

The man kept the rifle pointed in their general direction as he patted down his pockets with his left hand before pulling out a small LED torch. The torch was blinding as checked to see if he recognised Kirito.

"Yeah, alright. You can come in."

Argo relaxed slightly as she entered the train shed. She'd been here before in the beta, stalkers would usually spend the night here and occasionally have to defend the camp from bandit raids from the west. There were a lot more people here than in the beta though, perhaps as many as thirty odd people who she could see hanging about campfires made from old barrels heating a meal or makeshift tables doing various things to entertain themselves. More were probably in the rail carriage that during her time in the beta were used for sleeping. High above on the walkways a lone stalker sat watching, a rifle in hand.

"Kirito."

Her gazing cut short, she turned towards the new face.

"Diavel," replied Kirito who held out his hand which Diavel shook.

"Who's this?" asked Diavel, nodding towards her.

"That's Argo."

"Really?" he asked with surprise. "I didn't think you'd be that short in real life, Argo."

She recognised the name if not the face but wasn't really in the mood to humour the man she'd only met maybe once before. His tone didn't appear to be teasing so she just shrugged.

"Kirito, I need someone to help on watch, Argo's help would be appreciated as well."

Kirito made a sceptical "hmm" sound.

"I'm not doing graveyard shift again. I did that only two nights ago for you."

Graveyard shift was the watch shift in the middle of the normal sleep cycle and generally meant the worst night's sleep. There was probably a good reason Diavel had to ask for help with that shift.

For a moment an expression of frustration appeared on Diavel's face before he pulled out his PDA.

"Hmm, I guess I can move Hideaki to graveyard; it's just part of being a rookie. Can you help out, Argo? The security around here depends on everyone pitching in occasionally."

"As long as I'm on shift with Kirito."

"Yeah, I can do that. You guys have the west end five to six," said Diavel. "So far the bandits have only tried to approach from there, so I'd like a fellow beta-tester up there if I can."

"At least they're consistent," said Kirito.

"That will change fast when we see more player bandits."

Diavel's face tightened at Argo's comment.

"You really think it will come to that?"

The topic was uncomfortable, not just what the desperate would do but rather those who feel they're already marked for death and will never be punished for their crimes.

"It already has, out in the Swamps. I haven't heard anything from Darkscape but I imagine the only people still alive out there robbed everyone else of their supplies to make it by."

Diavel nodded in understanding.

"Are you going to the meeting, Argo?" he asked.

"Yeah, that's where we're heading. You?"

"We've got a couple of days, but I should have the people here set up by then and able to look after themselves without me around for a night or two."

o0o0o

Knowing they would be up earlier than usual they both headed in for an early night and managed to snatch one end of a goods car with a few thin futon-like beds in it. Argo's sleep was restless, dreams permeated with strange recurring images and sounds of the Zone, her own visage with clouded unseeing eyes, and a voice in the distance in a language she didn't know. She was woken by gunfire, unsure how long she had been asleep for.

"Kit on," ordered Kirito as he scrambled out of bed, throwing on his plate carrier and grabbing his rifle, leaving his day pack which he had been using as a pillow behind.

She quickly followed, doing up the clips on her own body armour as she jogged behind towards the west end of the rail shed.

"Hold up." Diavel stepped into the rail shed. "You can go back to bed, it's just some dogs."

To prove his point, she heard another burst of gunfire followed by the clear yelp of a blind dog.

"The guys on watch have got it."

There was quite a bit of grumbling from the dozen or so other people who had also raced out of bed to fight. A few other significantly slower stragglers were also beginning to appear in ones and twos. A few decided that if they were already up they might as well shoot at something and headed outside.

"What time is it, Diavel?" asked a woman in just a shirt and underwear carrying an MP-5.

"About quarter to two, Yuma."

"Well, I'm up now and I have watch in fifteen, so I think I'll stay. I'm going to go get my clothes."

Bleary eyed they both head back to the goods car, dumped their kits back on the ground and tried to get back to sleep. She didn't feel like she had gotten any sleep when she felt someone kicking her feet.

"Wakey wakey."

She rolled over to find some no name stalker standing over here.

"You're Argo, right?" She made a tired nod. "It's your shift."

She sat up as the stalker moved over to Kirito, her trench coat she had been using as a blanket pooling around her waist.

"Is this Kirito? He's supposed to be replacing Takeshi."

"Yeah, that's him."

The stalker proceeded to kick him in the foot.

"Do you really have to do that?" she asked as Kirito woke, giving a tired groan.

The stalker shrugged nonchalantly.

"First time I had watch I went to wake my replacement and she decked me. If you have any sense you don't want to be within swinging distance of a waking person in a place like this."

Both now awake, the stalker led them to the west end of the shed.

"Replacement's here, Takeshi."

"Sup," said Takeshi with a nod. "Well I'm off to bed. You guys know what to do?"

Kirito and Argo assured him they did before climbing up the stairs to the second floor where they would have a better view west over the security fence.

"It helps to not sit down if you're worried you'll fall asleep."

She gave a harsh laugh.

"I'm not sure I want to go back to sleep."

She was half-tempted to just dump her trench coat and feel the biting cold of the early sunless morning, guaranteeing she wouldn't sleep. Thankfully it was actually quite difficult to die of exposure in the game.

The watch gave her time to think as the sky slowly began to lighten. It was hard for her thoughts not to stray to the girl who had been victim of an emission, cursed to endlessly wander the Zone until you were cut down by a rifle bullet.

"Have you ever killed anyone, Kirito?"

She asked the question and immediately regretted it. It was an idea she had been strenuously avoided thinking about ever since she had shot those two zombies.

Kirito drew breath as if he was a bout to speak, before exhaling and pausing as he gathered his thoughts.

"I assume you mean players? That zombies don't count?" She nodded. They were after all, already dead – something didn't need to be said. "No – at least I don't think so."

Kirito paused again to think.

"I got into a shootout with some bandits about a week back. They we're good, but I don't think they had the… initiative to be players. I dropped maybe two of them before legging it out of there, so I couldn't know for sure."

Argo lent against the railing in silence for several minutes.

"Do you think we'll make it through this without killing anyone?"

"I don't really know. I think someday I'll loot a corpse and find it was a player I'd just killed, like I didn't even notice during the fight and I'm just going along with what I've done a dozen times before."

"Yeah." She wasn't sure how to respond.

She spent the rest of the watch shift zeroing in her gun sight. A metre was about 36 inches, 36 inches was about 12 _Minute of Angle_ at three-hundred yards, which was about three-hundred metres. Half a metre was 6 MOA at that distance. Each click on her sight was ½ an MOA so she needed 24 clicks to left to and 12 up.

o0o0o

"Yeah, it's just two guys about a thousand out."

Shortly before the end of their shift they'd spotted two figures moving by the entrance to the rail tunnel.

"You think they'll cause trouble?" asked one of their replacements.

Kirito shrugged.

"Maybe, I've got no idea if they're bandits, NPCs, players or what," he explained. "We could take a few pot shots at them; scare them off, but they might just be a few lost stalkers. I'm not sure that's the right thing to do. A thousand metres is a long way."

"Right, well, I'll ask Diavel and see what he think when he wakes up."

Kirito and Argo waved them off before heading deeper inside the rail shed. A few barrel fires were still glowing allowing them to heat up some canned food for breakfast or roast some preserved sausage.

"I wonder if someone has some energy drinks I could buy?" Argo wondered out loud.

There wasn't much in the way of people up yet at this hour, so she didn't expect a response.

"Think we could get moving to Rostok soon?" she suggested in lieu of an energy drink. A walk would help keep her awake.

"Yeah, just let me finish this," he replied, gesturing to his food.

They gave the east gate guard a nod as they passed before turning north to follow the road to Rostok.

"Did you end up playing the originals games?" asked Kirito shortly after they had dispatched a pack of blind dogs and a single hairy pseudodog.

Argo had played the original games after the beta period had ended, hoping to gain more insight into the game world which she could profit from. Kirito had politely declined.

"Yeah, do you still care about spoilers?"

"Not really, no. If there's something there that might save my life I'd like to know."

Argo spent the next hour of walking explaining Monolith the object, the origins and motivations behind Monolith the faction, the C-Consciousness, Strelok, the Brain Scorcher, Clear Sky and how the original games ended.

"I'm not sure what is relevant and what is not," she finished as they edged closer to the Duty checkpoint. "I don't know how much has been changed from the original games. I don't think there is a Strelok character running about, more like everyone trying to complete the game fills his role, but I'm pretty sure there is a Doctor or his analogue running about from what some people told me on the forums."

"I'd suspect the Monolith are the same, that they still worship a giant monkey paw. I'll make a note not to go near it when we get to the Power Plant."

"Maybe," she replied. "Then again, being the psycho he is, I wouldn't have put it past Kayaba to make the true ending you having to wish to be free of the game."

Kirito grimaced at the thought.

"I'm not sure I'd want to take that gamble."

"You can say that again," she replied quietly.

"Hmm, on the surface the Brain Scorcher is probably similar. I know we couldn't explore that far into the map during the beta but I can't see it going any differently. Someone has to get a protective helmet from one of the science labs and then deactivate it."

"Maybe."

"Are the maps the same?"

"Ehh, obviously they're way bigger here – I think in the original it was about thirty square kilometres with a bit more added on in the second and third game, here we have about _three-thousand_ square kilometres," she replied. "But I guess in terms of layout they're roughly the same. If you know what way Rostok was from the Garbage in the originals was you can do the same here; you just have a lot further to walk."

Like the night before as they approached the checkpoint they slung their weapon on their backs and did their best to look as non-threatening as possible. The NPCs manning to checkpoint weren't anyway near as jumpy as the as players doing the same job so they didn't have rifles pointed their way, but it could also have been the belief in safety in numbers.

"What's your business here, stalker?" asked a man in the red and black uniform of Duty who was playing the role of leader.

"I'm a guide, leading another stalker to Rostok," replied Kirito, gesturing to Argo.

 _Mercenary_ was probably more correct term, but Duty weren't too fond of people who labelled themselves mercs. They had had more a few violent confrontations with the more organised mercenary companies, and saw the smaller mercenary companies and individual mercs as people more interested in profits than the duty they believed everyone should have towards stopping the Zone.

Looking around he didn't see any player Duty members about. Guard duty was boring and players didn't really enjoy it so the higher up Duty NPCs didn't give you the job unless you asked for it. Given it was a lot less risky than the normal player missions he expected the ranks of Duty's guards to be filled out with players as less skilled stalkers found their feet and slowly moved towards the Zone's centre. It was a safe and cushy job, if not well rewarded.

"Well that will be two-hundred rubles each to pass. You know, tolls. You could also do me a small favour if you don't have the cash."

They passed on the side quest and just paid the bribe; shooting a few dogs or fleshes would probably cost them more in ammo than two-hundred rubles. Neither bother wasting further words on the unpleasant NPC as the guards opened a small gap in the checkpoint's gate.

o0o0o

"What happened to the propaganda?"

"You mean _'Dangerous mutants! Anarchists and Bandits! None of them will stop Duty on its glorious march to saving this planet!_ '?" asked Kirito.

"Yeah, _that_ ," replied Argo.

She had thought something seemed off as they passed the wide open killing fields littered with mutant corpses that surrounded Rostok. Duty's propaganda loudspeakers had been infamous during the beta. She couldn't imagine actually having to sleep through them.

"Well, you remember Morte? Creepy dude?"

"Yeah."

"Well he completely lost his cool a few days after arriving in Rostok. He couldn't take listening to the loudspeakers anymore, so he shot one."

"I can't see Duty tolerating that."

If you started shooting in Rostok Duty would give you one warning to stop, then kick you to the curb before dumping you outside the gates.

"Yeah, after his warning he climbed up onto the roof and just smashed them. Duty didn't even blink."

"I guess no one thought to program something like that in. I didn't even consider the fact I'd have to listen to that garbage moving up here. It would have driven me nuts."

As they approached the perimeter that again slung their weapon over the back. Besides the words " _no funny business"_ from the Duty officer the NPCs mostly ignored them.

"Lets head to the _100 Rads_."

o0o0o

The 100 Rads bar could be described as cosy. Deep underground in an old nuclear bunker in the middle of Duty's largest base everyone there felt they could relax. There was a lot of people to cut though before they could come to harm. The worst threat would be watching for anything that might have slipped in during an emission. Sometimes an NPC wouldn't reach shelter in time and would be zombified meaning stalkers had to be careful when first venturing out.

"So what's up?" asked Kirito over some hot food.

"What do you mean, what's up? We've been travelling together for two days."

Kirito waited for Argo to say something before giving it up as a bad job and asking his question directly.

"Your message, there was more to it that just wanting some security getting to the meeting."

 _Oh yeah,_ she had forgotten.

"I…" she stalled as she tried to come up with what she wanted to say. "I wanted to write a book."

"A book?" replied Kirito skeptically.

"I mean like a guide, for inexperience stalkers, for anyone really."

"You going to charge people for it?"

"After all this?" she replied distastefully. "No, no I won't."

Kirito snorted.

"What happened to _'I'll trade you my grandma for some pocky'_ Argo?"

She wasn't sure she'd actually ever said that. Still, if you could afford to pay for her services, you will.

"The Zone got to her."

* * *

 **181102 - Minor rewording  
**


	6. Chapter 4 Common Purpose

Only took me five months. Thankfully while stuck on this I managed to get a good chunk of the next chapter done.

* * *

 **Stalker Online**

 **Chapter Four:**

 **Common Purpose**

 **D+34**

"Some of the clans might be a better choice to ask on that."

"Yeah, I'll have to find someone." Argo replied. "You wouldn't have anyone you could suggest?"

"Leading a large team…" Kirito shrugged, he'd never done that in this game. "I'm not really sure. You could ask some people in Duty; their numbers are beginning to fill out. I mean, it's not the same as building a group from scratch but it still has the same sort of management duties going on."

Argo leaned back in her chair, balancing it on two legs as she considered it. It wasn't really a priority; she may have actually been thinking too big. The whole point of the guide is the basics to help people until they can get on their feet.

"Maybe we can do a more advanced guide later on."

"I guess that could work," Kirito agreed. "Maybe strip that bit out for now?"

Her chair landing on four legs again with a thunk, she picked up her PDA and resumed her cramped typing and editing. They'd already moved way past complaining how difficult it is to type on the small PDAs and neither wanted to start the bitching session up again.

It was late morning in the 100 Rads. A few people were having late breakfasts, others were drinking alone or in groups, commiserating their luck or misfortune. He'd never drunk himself in real life but the older players certainly vouched for the accuracy of intoxication.

"You nearly done with the section on grenades?" asked Argo, not looking up from her PDA.

"Yeah, almost there."

He'd worked mostly on the combat sections of the guide while Argo had taken on the more intelligence and lore aspects. A few people Argo knew had managed to fill in the some of the other gaps. There was a still a lot of work to do however.

"You got the file?"

Argo checked her messages folder and found Kirito's message.

"Yeah, I got it."

Argo went ahead and added the section into her draft guide.

"You think you can grab some food?" she asked, not looking up from her PDA.

Chair scraping on the concrete floor, Kirito got up to speak to Barkeep.

Like Sidorovich, Barkeep would give you jobs and buy and sell anything (though if you wanted weapons or armour, Duty's quartermaster here in Rostok had a better range). Being a bartender, he also had a wide range of drinks and food, including hot meals and things not out or cans or reconstituted from dehydrated ration packs.

Food in front or her, Argo abandoned her typing to eat. Meanwhile, Kirito took up to flicking through the tabs on his PDA. It was unpleasant to read, but he felt he had to know as he did his semi-regular routine of searching through the casualty and player lists for names he knew.

He momentarily paused at Coper's name. He hadn't known the guy well, really only in passing once or twice, but it was still another dead beta tester. One less player with invaluable experience lost. He eventually reached the line marked with the date and time when he'd last checked the list. A bit over a month and more than three-and-a-half thousand people were dead.

Switching tabs, he checked the player rankings. Neither he or Argo knew exactly how the rankings were determined but it still placed him at twenty-third place and Argo at one-hundred and seventeen. Argo hadn't completed any missions and had a very low kill count suggesting the ranking system took into account some other variables. Looking through the names between him and Argo he spotted Klein.

As the music in the bar switched to _Gurza Dreaming_ he put down his PDA and dug into his meal.

o0o0o

"Any idea what this is?"

It was clear someone had taken over one of the abandoned warehouses and turned it into a shooting range of some sort with targets scattered all over the place, but nearly everyone was loitering about near the entrance. There was only one shooter accompanied by someone who appeared to be giving instruction about half-way down the range.

Kirito gave Argo a shrug before asking one of the people congregated.

"A couple of guys from the Self-Defence Force and an American put together this range and are giving shooting tips," a twenty-something guy provided.

Kirito watched the military instructor run the tall and strongly built stalker through the course of fire. The stalker started at a line nearest to the observers while the soldier started a timer. On the go signal the stalker quickly brought up his rifle and rifled two rounds at each of the three targets immediately visible before sprinting down the range towards the backstop.

About fifty metres down range he halted behind an upright wooden board with the words "hard cover" spray-painted on it in big yellow letters. He brought up his rifle again and fired several times around the corner at targets Kirito couldn't see from his current position before running full sprint and engaging more targets. The stalker relaxed as the instructor reached their position. They chatted a bit as the stalker followed the instructor to inspect the targets.

It was difficult to tell what exactly the soldier was saying at that distance, but he made the stalker unload his rifle before shouldering it and then clearly critiqued their stance before making suggestions about the use of cover.

"They any good?" Kirito asked.

The stalker he had initially asked shrugged.

"No clue, they seem like they know their stuff, but for all I know they could just be talk."

Kirito continued to watch as they walked back to the start position. As they got closer he could see the stalker under his hood was black – probably an American Kirito assumed. As they got even closer he could see the instructor too lacked any Asiatic features.

"He's an American soldier?" asked Argo.

"Yeah," replied the stalker. "One of the SDF guys is running a pistol course over that way, the others are floating about." He pointed off to a two-story brick building where a smaller crowd gathered at the door.

The trainee stalker started shooting again as the instructor followed him through the course. Kirito couldn't help but think this type of training would end up being very expensive in ammo, particularly for less lucky and lower tiered stalkers, but he couldn't think of any obvious ways to cut the cost down. Using a cheap combloc sub-machine gun would be quite cheaper but they were pretty awful guns to use and didn't point or operate the same way as nearly any rifle in the game. The African-American man clearly had the right idea with his AKS-74u which was easily the cheapest rifle to feed in the Zone, but the cost difference per round wasn't really that huge and didn't justify having a separate training gun that was set up differently.

"You think they might be willing to look over the guide?" asked Argo.

Kirito shrugged.

"Maybe – they're giving out free shooting tips after all."

The pair hung around for when the instructors had a free moment.

o0o0o

"Diavel," they both said in greeting.

"Kirito, Argo," he replied.

"How's your little group going?" asked Kirito as he gestured to a free seat at their table in the 100 Rads as people streamed into the bar to take cover from the emission.

Diavel took a seat and shook his head.

"Not well, the night after you guys left about fifty zombies hit us from the west. They didn't reach the gate and only wounded three people but at sunrise we went out to loot them and the bandits hit us." Diavel paused, a forlorn look on his face. "We lost six people and another eight were pretty badly injured."

Feeling sick to her stomach, Argo momentarily wondered if anyone she had met at Rail Shed had died before deciding she didn't really want to know. She hadn't known anyone there except Kirito well enough to consider them a friend. The knowledge would not help her.

"What happened?" asked Kirito.

Diavel run his hand through is hair nervously.

"Well, as I said, they ambushed us – literally only a few hundred metres from our back gate. I had twenty odd of us go out to see what we could find on the zombies we'd wiped out when we started taking fire from the direction of the rail sheds. I thought for a few moments some of our own guys might have made a mistake –" he shook his head "– but really while we'd been looting they'd either slipped behind us or had been hiding as we'd walked past."

Diavel bore a guilty expression on his face.

"We laid down some covering fire and started to pull away from the. I intended to loop back around to the south and end up near the front gates, but we walked right into another ambush. It was awful, close ranged fighting. It's where we took most of our casualties."

"Damn," was all Kirito replied with.

"Yeah," replied Diavel hollowly. "I still can't figure out if it was planned or just stupid luck. Getting an ambush to funnel people into another ambush to work is beyond most real people. What you said Argo –" he turned to her "– the other night. I can only… I'm hoping what you said was right because if the NPCs are pulling this off we're going to lose so many before this is over."

"Assuming there aren't too many of them," she added grimly. She quickly regretted the uttered words.

Disheartened, Diavel didn't reply.

They sat in silence for a while before Kirito passed around the guide for Diavel to take a look at. He agreed to share it with everyone her could. Anything to stem the casualties.

The guide had gone live the day before and quickly spread among the stalkers in Rostok, and soon is would hopefully be further afield.

o0o0o

There were holes in the roof and some grasses sprouting up between the water-warped floorboards. The gym was on the edge of the safe area that made up Rostok. The remainder of Rostock was an anomaly and mutant infested ruin. There were many familiar faces in the ruined gymnasium, scattered across discarded equipment, others on the gallery high about the gyn's floor, maybe a hundred in all. Argo recognised several beta testers, the tall black American who had been getting shooting instruction from the previous day, the instructors themselves and a few others.

There were a lot of people she didn't recognise or who she had only met in the last few days as she set up in Rostok. She had managed to claim a room to use as an office and as a place to sleep but did most of her business in the 100 Rads which nearly everyone who visited Rostok passed through.

Checking her PDA she could see it was nearly midday. Kirito almost looked like he'd take a nap to pass the waiting.

She knew Diavel had something to do with setting this up – something he hadn't been throwing around – but she wasn't sure who his other partners were, if there were any.

The question was answered when Diavel got up followed by a tall and well-built man with lots of red facial hair. Argo could see Diavel go through a number of motions before speaking. There was uncertainty to him, some of his previous confidence lost in the last few days.

"I…" He started with before pausing. "I am Diavel. This here is Godfree." He motioned to his beared companion.

Godfree was clearly dressed in the muted maroon and black of Duty while Diavel wore a simple flecktarn camouflage jacket and faded jeans. Flecktarn uniforms were the sort of milsurp popular with stalkers who had yet to invest in a _Stalker Suit_ or those who intended to stay a long way away from anomalies.

"I've… gathered you all here today to try and gain some direction, some direction so we can complete this game with the minimum of lives lost." Diavel seemed uncomfortable with the word _game_ , like this was something trivial or that this was entertainment. "I'm hoping we can band together and move with a common purpose. You here are some of the best. Either I knew you by name, or you demonstrated your capabilities by reaching Rostok before everyone else. While I have some ideas myself, I'm hoping we can work together to come up with some sort of general plan."

Most of the faces in the room looked curious, but most people seemed hesitant to speak first. Eventually one of the SDF soldiers put his hand up and Diavel motioned him to speak.

"Are you suggesting we form some sort of unified military-like force?"

"It's Blackjack, isn't it?" Diavel asked to which the soldier nodded. "I would admit I'd like to see such a thing – I think if we could make that work that would be our best option for finishing this, but I'm not sure we could make it work. Unless you're secretly a general –" Blackjack looked slightly offended at the suggestion "– I don't think we've really got someone here who could lead such a group. Quite a few of us have experience running small groups, but hundreds or even thousands of people? When lives are dependent on your leadership? No one here is really qualified to do that and I think everyone knows that. Not enough would follow them, not enough would trust them."

There were a few murmurs of agreement with the sentiment.

"What do you propose instead then?" asked Blackjack.

"People should form clans or join one of the existing factions. We then have regular meetings between clan leaders and whoever else needs to be here where we can discuss with each other what we're doing, what our aims are, what useful information we've found and such. It doesn't require use to have huge amounts of trust in each other. I'm hoping after a while the various groups can learn to trust one another or maybe we can amalgamate the groups into more powerful groups with a more organised leadership."

Diavel was pacing as he spoke, finally seeming to get into the swing of things and losing some of his uncertainty.

Argo herself could see the appeal of such a thing. Clans would initially just be groups of friends, with overall leadership being close at hand. It would avoid the fear that many would probably have risking their lives for a person of unknown calibre playing general.

"This council of sorts wouldn't be able to compel anyone to work for them, but I think with our common goal of surviving this we should be able to work together. Hopefully when needed we will still be able to band together to fight things that are too big for our clans."

One problem with that. Argo knew she would regret suggesting this as she put up her hand.

"I have a small problem with your proposal."

Diavel's face fell slightly as a few people turned, recognising her voice.

"Your intelligence sharing idea seems clunky… slow," she explained. "We have the ability to send each other messages. It would be better to pass on important information as soon as possible rather than waiting until everyone can meet up. I'd suggest we put together a team of sorts that can sort, analyse and distribute it. Having the information go through a central location would helps us see the bigger picture and find various connections in it.

"Who are you exactly?" someone asked abrasively.

The speaker was a redhead with a soul patch.

"I'm Argo," she replied.

A few more heads turned at the name as the man with the soul patch snorted derisively.

"So you're the dumb kid who wrote that guide. You think that will make up for the lack of action from you beta testers?" he asked.

Argo didn't reply for several seconds, uncertain as to what the man was insinuating. She could see several people who had contributed to the guide give him a disgusted look.

"Pardon?"

The man looked at her like she was stupid.

"You heard me. You beta testers have a lot to make up for! Every single death has been on you!"

Argo stared at him wide eyed in disbelief as Diavel began to try and get the meeting back on track.

"And how exactly did you figure that?"

The tall and broad African-American man she had seen a few times around Rostok had stood up and spoken. It seemed she wasn't the only one having trouble following the chain of logic that lead to this man concluding beta testers were someone responsible for this disaster.

"And who are you anyway?" Arms folded over his chest, the man stared down at him from the balcony.

"I'm Kibaou," he replied curtly. "Who are you?"

"Agil," he replied flatly. "My question still stands."

Pressed to actually answer the question Kibaou seemed to have trouble explaining his sound reasoning.

"They know what to do and they know where all the good loot is before anyone else," he finally answered. "That's information that could have saved people."

Argo reluctantly gave Kibaou points for the complaint about loot. It was no secret she had profited immensely during the first few days selling stashes, but that information had quickly run dry. Even with one-hundred odd stashes stored away nearly all had quickly been sold off and if each had contained a full set of gear that was only enough equipment for a fraction of a percent of the population of the Zone. Instead, talented players were now using the loot she had pointed them to to survive and fight.

"If you'd done some basic research you'd have known the main quests were disabled for the beta test," said Agil. "They're just in the dark as everyone else. And through Argo's guide beta testers having been sharing nearly every scrap of useful information they have about surviving this."

"Perhaps we should get back on track?" suggested Diavel.

Agil nodded and took a seat, followed reluctantly by Kibaou a few moments later.

"You were saying, Argo?"

Heads turned to her again.

"We need some sort of intelligence analysing group, someone you can send any info you come across to and then they can compile it for distribution to everyone else."

There were quite a few people nodding at the suggestion.

"Can we have a show of hands for the idea?"

Most of the people in the room began to put up their hands in a show of support. Diavel gave a small nod at the progress they were beginning to make.

"Argo, would you like the job?"

Argo bore a strained expression at the request. She knew Diavel would ask her to take the job the moment she had made the suggestion. She was sure she could manage, correlate and disseminate the information, but she wasn't sure she wanted the responsibility. People would live or die by her analysis, far more than already did. At the moment she merely sold information on things, it was easy to point someone to a location, or tell them where and item could be found or bought, or give someone some heads up about what could be expected on certain missions. This was another level though; her information would shape the strategic picture, would direct factions to their success or doom. Dozens of lives could be snuffed out in a few moments if she made the wrong estimation or interpreted some data wrongly, or passed on bad intelligence.

Kibaou opened his mouth again.

"Just a second, how can we trust her?" he asked, standing up. "She sells information, how do we know she won't charge us for this, or maybe even hold back important things for money?"

She took a lot of offence at that.

"Ah yes, that's why I'm selling copies of the book for a thousand rubles a pop."

Kibaou looked at her in shock, like he actually thought she wasn't being sarcastic.

"Please, everyone, lets stick on topic," butted in Diavel, cutting Kibauo off before he could respond.

Diavel looked about the gymnasium before continuing.

"Do you want the job?" he asked again.

Argo sighed.

"I'm probably the best choice."

Diavel smiled at her.

"Great. If everyone can pass on what they see to Argo that will help," he said.

"What sort of things do you want to know about?" someone asked.

"Uh – enemy stalker movements, sightings of high-level mutants… any documents you find…" she paused for a second to further consider the question. "If you find something that might be an X-Lab or hear an NPC say that sounds important. Basically, anything that knowing about would help other stalkers or things that help us figure out what needs to be done to finish the game."

"Any other questions?" Diavel asked to which no one immediately responded. "Excellent, how often do you think you can send out the reports?"

Argo took a moment to consider the question.

"I can probably send out daily reports about enemy and mutant sightings, but it will depend on how often people can send me info."

Diavel nodded before turning and saying something quietly to Godfree.

"Moving on, Godfree and I had a suggestion that we try and get as many people as possible to sign up with the default factions; either Duty or Freedom."

More than a few people looked quite uncertain at the idea. Committing yourself to a one of two factions at war with each other was a big leap.

"Doesn't that mean being hostile to the other major faction though?" asked someone. "I mean Duty and Freedom are always at each other's throats."

"It does," said Godfree to some muttering. "I think the most obvious benefit that most of you should be aware off is the free gear you get given when you sign up or you get given for certain missions, or the massive discount faction traders give you."

There were plenty of nods around the gymnasium.

"The thing you might not be so aware of is that when people join Duty or Freedom they displace NPCs, and when we have enough players in the faction, we'll be able to place our people in the faction leadership positions. We can then end the conflict or enact a truce – I'm not sure the game will actually let us completely end the faction war – while gaining the benefits of a faction. Food, places to stay, fortifications, traders; for those of you not already in your own little faction this is an ideal opportunity."

"I'd like to say that Godfree and I were discussing this idea a few days ago and I fully endorse the concept," said Diavel.

"Are you sure about the NPC displacing thing?" asked someone.

Godfree and Diavel glanced at each other before Diavel took the helm.

"That's what happened in the beta. The whole system is designed so NPCs make up the skeleton of the faction so to speak, and then players are supposed to come in and take over as the game got off the ground."

"Even the crappy jobs can be taken over," added Godfree. "Things like guard duty are normally handed off to NPCs, but if you ask for the job they'll give it to you. It's boring work, but it pays and feeds you, it's reasonably safe, and it gets rid of the NPCs that will shoot at other factions."

He had a point about guard duty. As long as you had enough ammo most mutants couldn't get across the killing fields before being cut down by a PKM. Bandits too were hesitant to go up against what was normally a well-fortified position.

Agil stood up again.

"If this is true we should also be trying to encourage the people stuck in Cordon and the other border areas to do this. It will give them some goal to work towards, keep them occupied." There were a few confused faces at that statement. "I don't know how many of you have been back to Cordon or visited the Swamps, but all those people not cut out for finishing this game need something to do that will feed them. Most are currently sitting in the Rookie Village in fear, others are trying to get by on what little loot and artefacts remain in the area."

Diavel looked contemplative.

"I agree with the sentiment, but I'm not sure how we'll get all those people to here or to the old Army Base. We'd have to shepherd a lot of scared rookies on the two day trip from Cordon to here, another day if they want to go on to join Freedom. We'd needs lots of people or lots of trips with smaller groups to stop them from being picked off by bandits."

Diavel shook his head.

"It's something I think we'd have to do later on when we're in a better position, unless anyone has some ideas?"

He looked about to shakes of the head. Agil acquiesced to Diavel's position and sat down.

"What about joining other factions?"

Argo felt slightly peeved that someone had to ask that. She had explained it very clearly in her guide. She wasn't sure there was any excuse to pass up valuable information, though perhaps someone hadn't gotten a hold of a copy or had time to sit down and read it yet.

"Think you can field this one, Argo?"

She wasn't happy Diavel had put her on the spot, but she stood up anyway and leant against the wall.

"There are a few other NPC factions you can join. There's the Ecologists who pay well but they're really hard to properly join; for most stalkers they're more like a business you're a contractor for. They won't have squads walking about, they won't control much territory, you won't often be able to call on support from them. Most of their work consists of finding things for them, taking measurements for them, or guarding scientists as they do something. Eventually they'll give you an official permit to work in the Zone which is the closest you can really be to joining them. The permit allows you to cosy up to the military."

A few people brightened at the last two sentences. She had to nip that in the bud.

"I know some of you are thinking a Zone permit sounds good, but the stuff you'd probably have to do to get that is stupidly dangerous. You'll have to venture into increasingly more dangerous locations to take readings or retrieve things, and guard increasingly foolhardy NPCs as they do increasingly stupid things. You're far better off picking and choosing your jobs for them and treating it as an occasional source of income."

Most of the faces fell, but she could see a few were still considering the idea. She shook her head and decided not to dwell on foolishness.

"The only real other option is joining one of the mercenary companies. I don't really recommend it. Some of the work you'll have to do for them means killing other stalkers, and that includes _player stalkers._ There's a really fine line between a mercenary and a bandit in this world." Argo shook her head. "No, there's a fine line between a mercenary, a bandit and a stalker. A lot of the jobs you won't have a choice in the matter."

The group was silently contemplative at her words.

"We need to decide what we'll do with criminals."

The silence broken, everyone turned towards the man with the American accent. Argo had spoken to the man about her books and he had offered to proofread and add some things to it. Murphy claimed to be a US Marine part of United States Forces Japan, and while they couldn't verify the claim he did seems pretty knowledgeable, much like the people who claimed they were part of the JGSDF.

"I know there have been some incidents, and they've been dealt with by the people involved in them," he said, "But we probably need an actual system in place for dealing with them."

Diavel looked slightly uncomfortable coming back to this topic again.

"Are we going to put people in jail? Hold trials?" someone asked.

"What authority do we have to do that?" another asked.

"Hold up people," said Diavel, again trying to regain control of the situation. "No one has suggested anything yet."

"Like I'm going to trust some _beaters_ making the rules and playing judge, jury and executioner," shouted Kibaou.

The meeting went down hill from there. Thankfully no guns were drawn before Diavel suggested the meeting break up and try to reconvene in a few weeks.

o0o0o

"That went better than I expected."

Kirito spoke his first words in hours as he approached Diavel. Diavel looked at him with a mixture of scepticism and disbelief.

"I'm not sure about that," he said as he waved Godfree off.

"I'm surprised we managed to get people to agree on anything," said Kirito.

Argo could agree with that in a way; she wasn't surprised they could get people to agree to things, but after that display at the end she wasn't sure they would be able to get anyone in future to agree on things.

Diavel shook his head before speaking.

"What are you going to be doing now, Kirito?"

"Tomorrow I'm off to Yantar, I'm going to do a few jobs for them and try to get some useful artefacts," he said after a few moments of consideration. "I've been here for almost a week now, need to go out and do something."

Diavel could understand the need to be doing something constructive

"You want to join us for dinner?" asked Argo.

"No," he said. "I've got to get back to the Rail Shed, make sure everything has been going okay since I left."

Diavel walked them to the 100 Rads before they parted ways.

o0o0o

Rostok had been an eye opener. Gone were the scared, huddled masses of people, trying to scrape by. Instead were confident, well-armed and well fed stalkers, the spearpoint and their only hope of ever finishing this game.

Asuna Yuuki had walked into Rostok the day of the meeting, unaware of it. She had followed when some others were talking about it in the city's only bar and found herself learning far more in a few hours than she had in the last few weeks.

She had struggled with the game at first. She was not in any way well versed in video games, but she did know a few things second-hand from her elder brother. But, what she had learned was in no way applicable to _STALKER_. There was no grinding, no safe areas, no experience points. Just skill, caution tempered tenacity and no small bit of luck.

She had muddled through basic missions, trying to carefully manage her finances as she bought ammo, gear and food. Avoided mutants, stayed away from deadly anomalies, and at one point was robbed by NPC bandits at gunpoint, leaving her with nothing but her clothes and some items she had previously stashed away to stop other stalkers stealing them.

In the end she had decided to make the hazardous journey to Rostok, completely underequipped, hoping for new fertile ground to trod. She had stayed away from roads to avoid bandits, taking a longer, more circular route to the north end of Garbage. There were more mutants, but after her experience with bandits she had decided she preferred that risk over being at gun point again.

On the edge of the Dark Valley she had stumbled across a rotting corpse, chunks of flesh having been taken by the wildlife. She had almost been sick at the sight and she wasn't sure if had been an NPC or a player but she sang a prayer for the bounty of an SKS rifle, ammo and some other minor loot their death had brought her.

She'd ended up at the path to Rostok with only a rifle, some ammo and a single can of food to her name. She'd had to waste precious ammo on mutants to get the gate guard to let her pass and a few hours later she'd arrived in Rostok.

As she stood before the Duty's recruiter, Colonel Petrenko, she momentarily felt guilt for abandoning her fellow rookies in Cordon, but quickly quashed the thought. There was no way she could help them when she couldn't even feed herself. Here, on the spearpoint, she could make a difference. She'd be back, someday.

o0o0o

 _Argo's Guide V1.01 - Factions_

 _…There's a fine line between a bandit, a mercenary and a loner. You might want to call yourself a loner, and unaffiliated stalker, but when you take Sidorovich's contract, aren't you now a hired gun, a mercenary? A desperate stalker might steal some food from someone, or might don a balaclava and rob a stalker they know has been fortunate enough to get a good haul. They might still call themselves a loner, but deep down they're a bandit. A mercenary might go dive in anomaly for an artefact, or take up a very legitimate contract guarding some scientists, or they might rob a stalker for the artefact their client wants._

 _The difference is in your actions. You could call yourself a mercenary, take on mostly mercenary work, and still be a good person. We might stray between some definitions, but as long as you don't stray into bandit you're alright._

* * *

Next two chapters are completely original. I had planned to do a story based on the Moonlit Black Cats after that but I think I'll be pushing that further back.


	7. Chapter 5 Grey Skies

See, I can pump out chapters quickly... sometimes.

* * *

 **Stalker Online**

 **Chapter Five:**

 **Grey Skies**

 **D+42**

"Alright, I think I'm ready to go," said Aiko.

Aiko pressed the seal of her Soviet PMK gas mask to her face before pulling the rubber straps over her head and pulling them tight. She then pulled the hood of her L-1 rubberised chemical suit over her head, pulling the cords tight, and put on the clumsy black rubber gloves. The outfit designed to protect a Soviet soldier from a prolonged Nato chemical, nuclear or biological attack would suit her fine for venturing into the large gas anomaly field before them.

She had handed off all of her kit bar their detector and a small plastic bag of scrap bolts to her twin. Her AKS-74U was far better suited in Yuuki's hands covering her as she carefully made her way into the corrosive anomaly than in her own. Aiko's sawn-off pump-action shotgun and Yuuki's PPS were stacked next to their pack.

"Be careful," was Yuuki's only response, a small cloud of mist forming on her breath in the cold weather.

Aiko gave her sister a nod before turning on the "Bear" detector. The heavy rubber gloves degraded all of her fine motor skills making a task as simple as flicking a small switch difficult. After a few moments though she managed it and the detector lit up, confirming what they had already established; that there was an artefact in this anomaly field. The ring of LED's around the detector's round face had lit up to indicate its direction and the device emitted a shrill tone to indicate the hazardous presence of an anomaly nearby.

Taking her first bolt she threw it on a low and fast trajectory in the direction of the artefact. It managed to fly a good fifteen metres before there was a sharp fizzle and a crack as the bolt disintegrated in the caustic environment.

Her path clear, she carefully walked forward, rubber booties worn over her normal shoes sloshing in the swampy and icy water, before stopping a few metres short of where the bolt had vanished. Her detector's warning tone had gone from an annoying beeping to a continuous tone at this point so she muted it with a push of a button.

Checking the directional LEDs again, she could see the artefact was slightly left of forward so she pulled out another bolt and gave it a throw. It almost immediately crackled. Turning toward her left she pulled out another piece of scrap and gave it a throw, giving her about half-a-dozen metres to work with.

Watching the detector as she moved she was certain the artefact was only just out of reach - she just had to get around the wall of anomalies.

o0o0o

It was inevitable that she would worry every time her sister stepped into an anomaly field to feed them and keep them equipped.

Winter had come in and the temperature was beginning to drop below freezing at night. The cold made her fingers numb and felt ever worse against the cold metal of the carbine. Some had said that sensations in the Zone didn't feel right but she wasn't sure it really mattered. It was cold, and she could feel it.

Turning away from watch and back towards her sister, Yuuki could see her tracing her steps back meaning she had finished. She had been in the anomaly field for a long time. She turned to their pack and fished out the small and heavy artefact container. It's was just a simple lead flask with a lid and a clasp.

"You got it?" she asked as he sister approached.

Aiko shook her head as she pulled her mask off.

"I couldn't get to it. I went right around but couldn't find a path through."

This would cause them trouble. They'd been a lot more successful than most, but with the constant need to have better equipment and increase their survivability in the face of the Zone, they were cutting it close in rubles and food. They could probably afford to feed themselves for another day or two before they had to start selling some of their kit. Selling kit to feed yourself was not a long-term survival strategy though.

"Maybe we can go east?" Suggested Yuuki. This had been the only anomaly field in the area they'd got a hit on. "Dark Valley is out that way, isn't it? There should be some anomaly fields out there and I'm not sure many people have ventured out that way yet."

Aiko pulled off her gloves, dropping them and her mask onto their pack before fishing out her PDA from one of the pockets. The new guide had some information about most of the areas in the Zone.

Skimming the article, she found the information she needed.

"Dark Valley is full of bandits."

Yuuki had a momentary flash of a bandit blowing her away.

"Do we have much of a choice?"

"Hmm, we could go west to Agropom," suggested Aiko. "There's a pretty big stalker camp out there. There aren't many bandits but there is one of the largest active military bases in the Zone nearby."

"I'm not sure I want to tangle with the military and we're on the wrong side of Garbage – it will be a long walk."

"Yeah, I hear you."

Aiko took a few moments to make up her mind.

"Why don't we just take a look around Dark Valley? If it looks too hot we can bug out and rethink what we're doing. Maybe if it doesn't work out we can try going to the Bar for some work."

"Have we got the money for the toll?"

Aiko shook her head.

"No, but we don't need much. I think we can scrounge up enough if we sell some of our ammo. There will be someone there who's short."

It was better than selling kit.

o0o0o

They took turns sharing their pack every hour or so. They didn't have much; just some extra ammo, some food, some water, anomaly diving gear and a sleeping bag they shared, so it wasn't very heavy, even with an artefact container on top.

"The guide says under the various complexes in the Dark Valley there's several X-labs," said Aiko reading from her PDA as she walked. She was currently carrying the backpack.

"Lets not," replied Yuuki who was up front on point.

"Wasn't going to suggest it."

Suddenly Yuuki stopped.

"What is it?" asked Aiko as she unfolded the stock on her carbine and brought it to the low ready position.

"I think there's an anomaly field off to the left," replied Yuuki as she pointed.

Squinting, Aiko thought she could see the tell-tale distortions of gravity anomalies through the sparse trees of the forest and fading light.

"Maybe we'll be in luck."

They approached the field cautiously, finding it covered part of a glade in the forest and up a mall incline.

There were three main types of anomaly that fell into the gravity anomaly family; springboards, whirligigs and vortexes. Springboard anomalies gave out sudden powerful gravity shockwaves that could throw a person about or break bones while whirligigs spun anyone trapped in them around at high speed. Both were easily seen with the naked eye as they gave off small mounts of light and had the tell-tale distortions around them.

The same count not be said for vortex anomalies; they were a true 'trap' designed to kill unsuspecting stalkers, NPCs and wildlife. They gave off no light, distortion or sound until they are trigged, at which point they vacuumed up everything around them in a dozen metre radius and compacted them into a small ball of gore, bones, equipment and dirt before spitting the whole thing back out.

With that in mind they halted fifty or so metres from the edge of the field while Yuuki pulled their detector from their pack and switched it on. The detector gave a slow methodical beep every few seconds, indicating an anomaly was present some distance away. Confident they weren't about to walk into a vortex, they slowly resumed their approach.

As they approached the edge of the field, the rad alarm light lit up, prompting Yuuki to turn the detector to its Geiger-counter mode and turn audio back on. The device immediately gave off the stereotypical constant crackle associated with Geiger-counters; the reason the audio had been disabled in the first place.

With only one display on the basic Bear detector, you had to chose between anomaly detection or radiation detection, not both. Most chose anomaly detection given anomalies can kill you instantly. The detector could still give you a rad warning though, even if you didn't get an exact figure.

"What's the reading like?" asked Aiko.

"Umm…" replied Yuuki as she tried to find the screen illumination button, the rapidly darkening sky making reading the screen difficult. "Ninety-one millisieverts per hour."

Aiko's face twisted slightly. The figure would keep going up and would probably be much higher inside the field.

"Why don't you go back so only one of use gets exposed?" suggested Yuuki.

"No – uh – I'll do it," Aiko quickly replied, waving Yuuki off. She took the detector before Yuuki could respond and slipped out of their pack. Yuuki looked for a moment like she was going to protest before taking their pack and retreating further from the field.

As the detector began to protest the nearby anomalies the ring of artefact LEDs lit up.

"I got something," she called out over her shoulder.

Slinging her AKS-74U over her shoulder, she dug around through her pockets and pulled out a small bundle of blister packs. She quickly held each up, examining their markings in the fading light before selecting one. Four of the six pills had been removed and Aiko removed the rest before popping them in her mouth and taking a swig of water. Radioprotectants would help reduce the radiation dose she received, lessening the amount of expensive anti-rad she'd need to take later.

There were a number of useful medications in the Zone, of different strengths and with various methods of application. Injections were usually fast acting and the most expensive, but were short lived. Pills were long lasting and generally cheaper, but took a little while to kick in.

Turning back to her detect, Aiko fished out a piece of scrap from her bolt bag and tested the waters. A previously unseen vortex tripped, producing a large gust of wind that sucked up leaves and blew her hair about before there was a large _whoosh_.

She carefully probed around the edge of the anomaly field for the next ten minutes. Most of the anomalies were the obvious springboards and whirligigs, but every so often she hit a vortex of varying size.

She had found what looked like a way into the field when she heard several bursts of gunfire. She noted the sound was close by – maybe a few hundred metres at most – as she dropped to a knee and unslung her carbine, distractedly unfolding the stock while trying to figure out who was shooting who.

o0o0o

Yuuki followed her twin at a distance as she probed her way around the field. It had occurred to her a few minutes in that she and Aiko should have switched weapons. It wasn't ideal; they had to switch their sets of webbing around as well given her PPS and Aiko's AKS-74U used very different ammo types, but she was in the best position to defend both of them here, and the extra range, accuracy and hitting power of the 5.45x39mm rounds would help.

As she watched and waited, a small part of her hated that Aiko tried to push her away from danger, but most of her knew Aiko did it because she cared about her. Another part wished she could protect her sister as well.

She shook her head, trying to clear her mind. This was just something Aiko had always done, something that had been ever-present, long before their condition had become publicly known and their schoolmates had looked at them with fear.

Her musing was abruptly halted when she saw movement along the path that they had walked towards the anomaly field.

Squinting, she could see the figures moved quickly, but in the low light she had trouble making them out other than that there were several of them and they were staying low. Quickly turning back towards the direction of her sister, she could see Aiko was continuing to follow the edge of the field, unaware of something approaching. She gave a thought to calling out to her, but quickly discarded it, deciding that attracting attention was worse; if they were lucky they'd just be passed by.

Checking her sub-machine gun over, she dropped to a knee and waited, still. As the figures crossed from the shadows of the trees and into moonlit glade she recognised what they were; _snorks_. The six disfigured and mutated bodies crawled quickly across the ground of four legs. A dozen metres into the glade they paused and began using the tattered hoses on their gas masks to sniff about. Though she was too far to see it she could imagine the lipless mouth of shattered teeth visible under the poorly fitted gas mask.

As she waited carefully, desperately hoping the snorks would move on, she though back to their previous run in with the mutated stalkers in the Garbage. There was only two during her first and only encounter with them, and she and Aiko had been backed by half a dozen other stalkers camped out in the building there had all shared for the night. The rumbling growls had been their first warning before the stalker on watch had opened fire.

The experience had taught her that snorks could jump a long way before kicking at you and ripping at your flesh. Like most mutants, they key was to put as much distance between them and yourself, and use the range of your guns to your best advantage. The problem was they were already getting a bit too close for comfort – maybe a hundred metres away. They had abandoned their sniffing and seemed to be following the route to her right from the edge of the glade to the field of anomalies she and Aiko had taken, no doubt sniffing out their trail.

Deciding they were already too close she raised her PPS and lined up the sights on the bounding figure. She noted the stamped folding metal stock didn't give her a very comfortable cheek weld as she slowly tightened her grip on the trigger. In the darkness there was a gout of flame from the muzzle break as she let off a burst of three or four rounds. The PPS was more controllable than her old PPsh with its lower rate of fire, and she'd fired this gun enough by now to know how much she had to pull down to compensate for recoil without over compensating and shooting low.

She couldn't tell if she definitely made a hit, but she could make out a few bits of sod erupt around the snork. Taking aim again she let off another burst and then another. She could see the snork she had been aiming at was quickly falling behind the others as they began to bound towards her. Deciding they were too close she turned and started to run towards Aiko.

As she got close, she could see Aiko had her carbine up and aiming in her general direction. She curved off to her right giving her sister a clear shot at the pursuing snorks. With its very short barrel the AKS-74U produced an almost blinding muzzle flash in the night as Aiko took careful aim and fired in semi-automatic.

Reaching her sister she turned and brought up her PPS. She quickly drained the rest of her magazine, stuffed it in her pocket and inserted a fresh magazine. She fired off another burst.

"We need to move!" she said, hitting her sister on the shoulder to et her attention.

Aiko fired one more round before turning to her and nodding.

They followed the edge of the anomaly field for a hundred or so metres, Aiko occasionally grabbing her by her shirt and pulling her off to the right, away from the field. Thinking solely about the snorks on their heels she hadn't given much thought to how close she was and how easily could stumble into an anomaly.

Reaching where the field met the forest on the other side of the glade Aiko stopped and turned. She mimicked her sister's movement, watching and waiting for the snorks to crest the small hilltop.

Suddenly there was the sounds of rushing air as a snork triggered a vortex anomaly. Two managed to get caught up in the conflagration of leaves, dust and snork. They made a strange sound, almost pitying – something Yuuki had incredible trouble association with snork – as they were twisted and deformed in the intense gravity field. The sounds they made quickly cut out. Then, there was a squelching sound before the snorks and debris sucked up in the vortex were turned to gore and quickly spat out over the glade.

She felt sick to her stomach for a moment as she considered the sort of accident that could befall Aiko as she anomaly dived to feed them, before the rumbling growl of the last two remaining snorks reached hear ears and brought her back to the reality they inhabited. There was sixty or seventy metres between them and the first snork. Another twenty metres behind it was a previously wounded snork, limping its way towards them. Together they raised their weapons and opened fire. The closest snork went down in two or three bursts and the last was quickly dispatched with another.

Alone in the forest again she realised her ears were ringing.

o0o0o

She momentarily forgot the hazards of the object Aiko held out before her. The artefact was like a glowing yellow sea urchin the size of a clenched fist. It emitted enough of a repulsive field that it floated in between Aiko's cupped hands, its many spines never touching her gloves. It took her a moment to notice the shrill crackling of the detector's radiation counter, so she fished the artefact container out of their pack in which Aiko placed the artefact before placing the lid on top and doing up the clasp.

"Any idea what that is?" she asked Aiko.

Aiko shook her head.

"I've seen pictures of it in the guide, but I can't remember the name. I'll look it up when we get a chance."

"Do you need any anti-rad?" she asked. "You were in there for almost half an hour."

Aiko shook her head again.

"I should be okay for now, I took plenty of radioprotectant first."

They stood in silence for a few moments before Yuuki broke it.

"Where do we want to go now?"

"Well there's a few thousand rubles there from the artefact at least," said Aiko. "We could go straight to the Bar."

"It's late though," Yuuki pointed out. It was well and truly night time now with the only illumination provided by the moon. "If we walked through the night we wouldn't get to Rostok until midday, maybe even later."

The pair considered it for a moment.

"We could keep going to Dark Valley – it can't be much further – and find a place to crash for the night, we could head back towards the bar at sunrise," aid Aiko.

Yuuki made a note of disagreement.

"If we're at Dark Valley we might as well take a look around. We've already walked most of the way."

Aiko seemed keen to cash in their loot as quickly as possible.

"Let's think about it."

They walked for another hour before the forest gave way to overgrown fields. They could see the shapes of large buildings in the distance at several locations but couldn't make out anything smaller they could take shelter in. They were due for another emission soon; the last had been four days ago.

"I can't see anything," said Aiko as she fished out her PDA.

Checking the map and their GPS location she searched out for something that looked like a building. The factories and anything large were out as they were no doubt occupied, so they had to find something small and out of the way.

"How about this?" she asked, handing her PDA to Yuuki.

"Hopefully it's out of the way enough," she commented.

o0o0o

Aiko pulled pushed open the trapdoor. Not having a watch was risky, but with only two of them sharing watch meant very little sleep which they balanced against the relative safety offered by their basement sleeping place. Most mutants wouldn't make it past the trapdoor and it was hopefully discreet enough to prevent NPCs or players from stumbling on them. Regardless, the emission the previous night would have had NPCs and players running for cover, not looking for someone to rob.

Gun in hand and safety off she checked they hadn't picked up anyone upstairs during the night, finding nothing.

"You still want to stick around?" she asked Yuuki as they finished off some preserved meat.

They were in the ceiling where they could get a good three-hundred and sixty degree view of the surrounding landscape through the holes in the roof.

"We're here," she replied simply.

Aiko would have scowled if she wasn't chewing food at that moment. It seemed unnecessarily risky when they had a mid-tier artefact to sell that would easily feed them for a few weeks if it had too and would get them into the Bar. Having looked it up the night before, she now knew the artefact was a _night star_ , an artefact that made your gear slightly lighter for a small radiation penalty and were reasonably valuable.

"I don't like it," she said after swallowing her food.

She wouldn't tell her sister no, but she didn't have to like it. She sighed.

"What do you want to check out?"

Yuuki shrugged.

"Dunno. Dive for some artefacts, see how many bandits there are, scope out some stalker camps."

o0o0o

The bandits hit the deck at the supersonic crack of a bullet. One of their number cried out before going face first into the ground, bleeding profusely from a wound dead centre in his upper back. He tried to roll himself over but struggled with the now dead weight of his before giving up and stilling with a quiet final moan.

About four-hundred metres distant the shooter lined up the forth chevron from the top of her PSO-1 scope on the next bandit. They were in a poor position, maybe 100m from cover in the open on an incline. There was nothing they could hide behind and going prone did not make them small enough to miss laying down and exposed on the hillside.

There was a slight wobble of air distortion behind the bullet as it made its way down range to strike another bandit. He jerked slightly at the hit before stilling. His comrades didn't seem to know where the fire was coming from but they tried anyway, firing their mismatch of AKs in what they thought was the general direction of the fire.

As another bandit was cut down with a crack, leaving three remaining, one of the bandits shouted at the other two and they quickly jumped up before making a run for it. The shooter lined her sights up again and fired. The round kicked up dirt and the bandit stumbled in surprise at the round closely passed him by. This just encouraged him to run faster. She fired another round which clipped the unlucky bandit in the arm, causing him to tumble in shock.

Before she could get another shot off though his comrades had grabbed him, dragging him out of sight. She took a pot shot at the bushes they had gone behind but didn't expect much of it.

Sighing, she crawled backwards under the abandoned tractor she had been using as concealment and took a knee. She gave the area the once over, keeping an eye out for anything that could have been attracted by her shooting. There was a chance the bandits were looping around to flank her or to flush out her hiding position, but it wasn't likely so diminished in numbers and carry wounded. There were other threats though besides the obvious mutants such as other bandits or some overly curious stalkers.

She sat there for several minutes, waiting still and silent, looking out for any movement. Satisfied no one was coming to investigate she stood up, cradling her SVD rifle in her arms, and made her way towards her targets. She was cautious as she approached the bodies, well aware the same trick of being stuck on open ground could just as easily be used against her too.

Within five minutes she had pulled dozens of loaded magazines, various medicines, a single under-folder AKM in good condition and most importantly food off the bandit corpses. It was messy work, something she had quickly been desensitised too since she made the decision to flee Cordon and survive in solitude. She hadn't spoken to anyone – NPC or player – since Kayaba has made his announcement on the first day. She had done her best to avoid other players and ruthlessly hunted down bandits to feed herself.

With her pack loaded up with supplies and her new AKM over her shoulder Sinon proceeded to her hideout.

o0o0o

"We need some binoculars I think," said Aiko.

They were watching the building that supposedly housed X-18 in its basement, one of the notorious X-Labs that probably held the secrets needed to finish the game. Neither had any intention of entering the lab, but Yuuki had been curious enough to take a look at the building.

There was a steady stream of bandits coming and going from the factory with a few on watch, so they made no attempt to get any closer. Hence the need for binoculars.

That morning they had managed to go diving in a field of chemical anomalies on the edge of one of the Valley's marshy lakes, coming up with a _stone blood_ artefact. It was an ugly little thing; a mass of plant, animal and – possibly – human matter that had conglomerated into a misshapen reddish-brown lump. They weren't particularly valuable, offering some minor chemical protection for radiation, but still worthwhile to take to the Bar. It also didn't leave much space in their artefact container.

"You think we're done here?" she asked.

Yuuki shrugged.

"I can't see much, but I guess I now know where not to go."

Aiko gave her an unimpressed look.

"Right, I think we're done then. We should head to the Bar."

Yuuki paused for a few moments before responding.

"We should check out that stalker camp by the workshops first," she said.

"You mean the one at the south end of the valley?"

"We're here, we should take a look at it."

It was perfectly reasonable and therefore difficult to argue against.

"Don't mention we've got anything," said Aiko as they neared the stalker camp a few hours later. Yuuki rolled her eyes, it seemed obvious.

"Hey," said Aiko as they approached the small rusting gate in the wall around the workshops. She gave the stalker standing guard a wave.

"Hey," she replied. "Are you new around here?"

They both gave a cautious nod. The guard didn't have much in the way of equipment; just a Mosin Nagant, jeans and an old olive green jacket with bulging pockets, but she might have some backup somewhere ready to jump them.

"Watch out for the NPCs in the western workshop. They're a bunch of con artists – almost bandits really. We haven't figured out what we can do about them yet but don't take any jobs from them and don't do any deals with them. If you're lucky it will just end in tears."

The sisters gave each other a concerned sideways glance.

"Thanks for the tip," said Aiko.

Ignoring the western workshop for the eastern they entered it to find a few dozen stalkers sitting about. There were a few beds, some chairs and a few tables. The room was mostly quiet, a few people sitting together and chatting, but most were by themselves or trying to sleep. The woman at the gate was better equipped than most of them, quite a few sporting the clothes they had entered the game with. Some still carrying sawn-offs and some even looked like all they had was a pistol.

It was a strange sight, Aiko wondered. She wasn't sure how you could even get this far into the Zone with just that. Maybe as a group with a few better equipped stalkers? She found herself slightly curious and wanted to ask but no one looked like they were in a talking mood.

At the far end she could see a trader or something similar, sitting at a table with piles of stuff on it and talking with another stalker. They waited a few minutes, wasting the time just looking about the strange environment, before the trader and the stalker finished their business.

"Hey," she greeted. The trader didn't seem like an NPC having followed the conversation between him and the stalker. She was pretty certain he was a player.

"Hey, I'm Nezha," he introduced himself.

He looked young, maybe around their own age.

"I'm Ran, this is Yuuki," she said, pointing to her sister.

Aiko using a different in game name always felt odd to Yuuki. While she had gone with her real name, Aiko insisted on _Ran_. But she would always be Aiko to her, which was why it unsettled her every time she heard the name.

"What can I do for you?" he asked.

"Uh – we're just looking about. We came over from Garbage looking for some work," she explained.

"Getting that bad over there – eh?" he asked.

Aiko shrugged.

"Just a lot more people about," she replied.

"Right," he replied, considering what she had said. "Well there's a few things that will feed you around here. There's probably plenty of artefacts about – not many people have the gear to get at them you see. Some people had some ideas about thinning out the bandits for loot but not many have the gear to go up against them at the moment. Pretty risky naturally – anomalies don't shoot back."

"Yeah," she agreed. "Any scavenging?"

"That's what some people do over in Garbage, isn't it?" They both nodded. "I guess you could if the bandits weren't holed up in nearly every factory here."

"Right."

"Yeah, the bandits are a bit of a problem."

Aiko looked about the workshop, the occupants suddenly reminding her of her earlier question.

"So where did all you guys come from?" she asked.

"Huh? You mean like how we ended up here of all places?"

"Yeah."

"Well, most of us came through Darkscape," he explained. "Except there's not much there – not much that will feed you at least – so we had to keep moving. This is basically those of use that managed to hit shelter fast enough during the emissions on the way here."

o0o0o

"We should probably crash at that house again," said Aiko as they walked in the direction of the Bar.

It was getting late in the afternoon. They certainly wouldn't reach the edge of Garbage by nightfall, let alone the path to the Bar.

"Seems as good a place as any."

They had a few hours to kill before sunset and going to sleep so they sat in the roof space again.

"How's the diary going?" asked Aiko.

Lying back on the rafters, Yuuki sat up and glanced at her.

"I don't really know," she replied with a touch of uncertainty. She took a few seconds to compose her thoughts. "It's not very… concise if you know what I mean. I'm just writing about anything rather than… like I'm talking about exactly what we've done over the last few days. I guess when I first did this, I thought I'd take note of what we'd done and write about what I thought about it. It didn't really end up like that."

A lot of things didn't end up like we thought they would noted Aiko.

o0o0o

Yuuki looked up from her PDA. Aiko had turned her head, like she was listening for something. Sitting up, she got closer to one of the holes in the roof. She could definitely hear gunfire, and lots of it.

"What do you think's happening?"

Aiko didn't respond immediately.

"Sounds like a pretty big battle."

It was to the north, so that probably ruled out someone hitting the stalker camp.

"Bandits maybe?" asked Yuuki. "Maybe Duty are taking a stab at them?"

She hadn't talked to any Duty players, but the NPCs seemed like "law and order" types. It wasn't inconceivable.

The gunfire slowed a bit for a few minutes, before she heard the crump of a few grenades going off. It sounded closer that she had expected. Then the gunfire quickly picked up again, sounding even closer.

"Should we move?" Yuuki asked, glancing at her sister.

If the battle was coming this way it made sense to be out of the way, but most of their gear was in the cellar. By the sounds of it the battle could be on to of them very quickly, quicker than they could get out. There was a real possibility of taking a round I the back as they ran.

Fate decided for them though as a lone figure in surplus olive green came out of the overgrown fields and sprinted towards the house. Whoever they were clearly hadn't noticed them as they barrelled into the building. They could hear them moving about downstairs. Taking a peak out of the roof hole, Yuuki could see what looked like dozens of bandits taking position one or two hundred metres away around the north end of the house before she heard the crack of rifle fire from down stairs and the bandits returned in kind.

* * *

So, first non canon inspired chapters. This little arc should be two or three chapters.


	8. Chapter 6 Electric Light

This took ages.

* * *

 **Stalker Online**

 **Chapter Six:**

 **Electric Light**

Sinon entered her shelter. It was an old pumphouse of some sort, probably used to move water for farms elsewhere in the Zone. Space inside the solidly built little building was limited, with most of the structure taken up by a large electric motor and turbopump, but it suited her fine; she didn't need much, and it was sturdy enough to shelter her from emissions.

She added the food she had looted to the small pile in one corner and threw her other loot in another. She had accumulated half a dozen different longarms and a few pistols over the last month or so. The AKM underfolder was just another. She didn't have much need for them and had no one to sell them too but it seemed a waste to leave them behind.

Setting her Dragunov against the wall, she unclipped her plate carrier. She momentarily noted the large bloodstain down the front like she had the day the blood had been wet. Like most of her gear, she'd pulled it off a bandit. Not many bandits had body armour and it had been her luck the round had gone through his neck and not struck harmlessly on his chest.

Taking a seat against the wall she dug into some of the bread she had looted today, knowing it had the shortest shelf life.

Sinon pondered what she was doing. She knew this isolation would eventually drive her mad, yet here she was gripped by fear. It was in a way easier for her to spend her days shooting NPCs for food and ammo.

She had run from the last group of stalkers she had sighted. Besides the fear, she was worried what she would do in the company of others on such a hair trigger. Would she spend every hour with her rifle clasped tightly in her hands, preparing for an attack? Would it be better than the months or maybe years she would wait for this game to be completed?

Finishing her food, she threw her plate carrier back on and picked up her rifle before heading out of her shelter. Heading north she walked for about twenty minutes and reached a barn. When she had first found this place there were two dog-like mutants with lots of teeth and stubby faces living on the ground floor. They had been surprisingly resilient and far more dangerous than the usual blind dogs that infested the Zone.

The crooked wooden door scraped on the group as she opened it. Climbing up a wooden ladder she reached the barn's loft. There was a range of old junk stored there, mostly bits of farm equipment. In her exploration several weeks back, she had found some 7.62x54mmR ammo wrapped in wax paper and a medical kit stashed behind some boxes up here.

She didn't have much to do, no one to talk too, and she only ventured out to hunt down bandits when she needed more supplies, so she spent much of her time just watching. From her current vantage point she could watch the road to the large bandit hub constructed in an old factory to her north.

The bandits made regular trips in small groups southwards and off to the west, presumably to rob people and collect protection money. They were quite organised, more like mobsters than lone thugs. Many would be ordinarily indistinguishable at a glance for regular stalkers while others took to the thug aesthetic complete with balaclavas.

About an hour later she watched a large group of more than a dozen make their way south. Looking through her scope she counted fifteen. She could see they were more heavily armed than usual, most carrying proper rifles instead of the usual mix low-tier shotguns and the odd AK carbine, and quite a few had body armour. She could only conclude they were heading towards the stalker camp at the south end of the valley, though it was also possible they would turn off towards the west a bit further down the road, maybe to attack Duty or some other more organised group in the Garbage.

Sinon momentarily considered taking a few shots at them. She may not have been able to face anyone else but she wasn't above not helping them if she could. However, she quickly decided against it; there were too many bandits and their relative positions meant there was a lot of cover between her and them. She could probably take out one, maybe two, but by then they rest would have scattered and made use of the various bits of cover that littered the road. At which point they could probably advance towards her. A poor proposition for one against fourteen.

She had always (sensibly) favoured attacking when the enemy was in a weak tactical position and she was in a strong one.

Sinon waited and watched the bandits walk by and disappear out of sight.

"Should we check this building?"

She almost jumped in surprise, but instead she tensed, her hands tightening on her rifle, unmoving. She became hyperaware of any sounds and realised she could hear the squelch of a boot meeting a soft and wet bit of soil.

"We have to check everything," another accented voice replied.

"This building doesn't look strong enough to stand up to emissions." A third.

Their speech was stifled somewhat, like they were just sticking scripts together, a sign of an NPC and not a person talking.

There was a scraping sound as one of them pushed open the barn door.

She could see light coming through the poorly fitting floorboards of the loft, like someone shining a torch back and forth.

"It's empty," said the first voice.

She let go of the breath she had been holding at those words.

She could hear several more footsteps and could see the light was shined about some more.

"Look, a ladder."

Sinon realised she only had a few moments to decide what to do. Her long Dragunov was completely unsuited to close quarters work and her only other weapon was a Russian made GSh-18 handgun. Quickly making up her mind, she reached into a pouch on her plate carrier and removed an RGD-5 grenade. She'd never used one before; the enemy had never before gotten close enough to need to use one. Grasping it firmly, she pulled the pin. She was suddenly acutely aware of the pressure now being exerted by the spoon on her hand before giving the device an underarm throw towards the ladder hole.

There was a light pop as she threw the grenade before she turned and pushed her SVD through the hole in the barn roof and followed her rifle through. She had her rifle up and at the ready as she stood up, quickly sweeping the area with the muzzle, looking for anyone who might be waiting to shoot her unprotected on the roof. Then, there was bone shaking explosion.

Some of the wooden roofing shingles were blown off the room before sliding off and down. There were screams from inside that took her a few seconds to process. She absentmindedly noted she _thought_ she hadn't heard any cries of warning before the grenade went off.

Scrambling up the crest of the roof she peeked over. There were three or four bandits outside with guns up at the ready.

"Pavel, check inside," ordered one.

The one called Pavel took two steps towards the barn before he glanced up and met her eyes. Realising instantly she'd been spotted, Sinon slipped backwards down the roof as he brought up his rifle and let off a burst. Bits of shattered roof blew over the top of her as she went off the edge and towards the ground.

Unlike her previous experience falling off a roof, she only fell a foot and landed on a stack of crates.

"What the Hell are you shooting at?" someone yelled.

"There's someone on the roof!"

Climbing down the crates Sinon reached the ground. She could hear yells before she sprinted away from the building and into the overgrown fields. She thought there was enough tall bushes and trees to hide her escape when she heard the snap of bullets passing nearby. Hitting the ground, she turned and brought her rifle up, looking for targets. She couldn't see anything but the bandits clearly had some idea where she was going by the continuous snap of bullets passing nearby and the occasional tree branch of stalk of grass shattered by the fire.

Trying to control her erratic breathing she quickly took the opportunity to switch magazines. If they were after her she only had a few minutes at most before they moved up or tried flanking her. She certainly didn't have enough distance between them and her to feel comfortable enough; an SVD was not a good weapon for fighting at close range in the scrub. Getting up on a knee she took a moment to listen, and not hearing anything, she turned again and took off at low run, heading towards the overgrown edges of the field.

About fifty metres later someone started shooting again. Hitting the ground for a second time, she could tell the gunfire was coming from the west. Again, she couldn't see the shooter. The shooter might have just gotten a momentary glimpse of her through the trees as she had run and taken a few wild shots.

Aware of her precarious position, Sinon decided to take a risk. There was the constant feeling the bandits were trying to block her off on all sides so she got up again and ran. The scrub was looking familiar as she realised, she was close to her hideout, and also realised she was possibly leading the bandits right there. She mentally cursed her mistake and began thinking about what she needed to grab and make her escape with.

There was gunfire again. With the blood rushing in her ears she didn't stop and didn't take note of where it came from.

By the time she reached the pumphouse she was on autopilot. She grabbed a bag and started stuffing food in it, she then moved onto her medical supplies and threw in some ammo for her SVD. The AK underfolder was right where she left it and still loaded so she threw it over her shoulder and added AK magazines and some grenades to her bag.

As Sinon gave her hideout and her loot the onceover was a slight amount of irritation at having to leave everything else here for the bandits.

Sticking her head out the door she saw a pair of bandits crouching at the edge of the field a hundred or so metres away. Not wanting to get pinned inside a building with only one door she immediately stepped out and moved around to the opposite side of the pump-house before they could react. A few seconds later there was the snap of bullets and the shattering of brickwork.

Sinon leaned out of cover, Dragunov raised, hoping she could get a shot when she saw several more bandits appear. There was a crack of bullets, their gunfire was intense, and she was once again aware of her precarious position and the fear of being boxed in. If their boss was thinking straight, he would soon have some of his bandits go around the pump-house using the edges of the overgrown hills for cover. She would then be pinned in place with nowhere to go.

With them closing in Sinon quickly made the decision her Dragunov was not the best choice for close in work with so many targets about. She unslung her AKM underfolder and threw the SVD over her shoulder. When she got a second, she would stuff some AK magazines into the pouches on her plate carrier.

Sticking the muzzle of the AK around the brick wall she emptied the magazine, brass bouncing off the wall of the pump-house, trying to sweep her fire over where she though the bandits had taken up position without exposing too-much of herself. As the rifle clicked empty, she again turned and made a run for it, into the adjacent field. There were a few distant snaps of gunfire as she ran.

Reaching the other side, she ducked behind a small stretch of overgrown fencing, took off her pack and began reloading her AK before removing some SVD magazines from her plate carrier and replacing them with AK magazines. A few hand grenades were added after a second of consideration. Throwing her pack back on her shoulders it was only a few seconds later when several bandits appeared through the bushes and trees on the other side of the field. Unfolding the stock and raising the weapon to her shoulder she took aim.

Sinon fired off three rounds and the bandits hit the dirt. She couldn't tell if she had actually hit him as the AK leaf sights were completely alien compared to the PSO-1 scope she had become used to. She couldn't tell where the other bandits had gone to ground but they were shooting in her direction. She left off a few more bursts of fire where she thought they might be before legging it out of cover and across the next field. Hopefully the bandits would hesitate long enough for her to get away.

At the next line of trees Sinon stopped again and waited. Uncomfortable with her inability to score consistent kills with the AKM and happy with the distance between herself and the possible target, she unslung her SVD again. It was only two or three minutes later that bandits appeared under the cover of the trees. Unlike last time they didn't immediately follow her into the open but she could still clearly see them through her scope.

Picking what looked to be the most heavily armed bandit, she squeezed the trigger. He hit the ground like a sack of potatoes as the back of hit head blew out, his fellows diving for cover. She couldn't see them, the view blocked by the grassy fields, but she drained her magazine anyway where she though she'd seen them go down, grass being much better concealment than it was cover. Slinging her SVD over her shoulder again she picked up her AK from the ground and pushed through the tree line, intending to cross the next field again. But as she approached the open, she saw something that made her heart sink: the fifteen bandits who had headed south earlier approaching from her left – from the east. They were less than 50 metres away, their weapons up and at the ready, no doubt having heard the gunfire moments before.

There was a moment of clarity as she realised this wasn't just some determined bandits she had stumbled across; they were hunting her. The first group of bandits had headed south to cut her off while the second group would go north to south through the fields and the forests to flush her out. It was just luck that they had mistimed everything, that the first group was not yet in a proper position, that they hadn't had time to sweep from the road westward and form a line she was supposed to die on.

Leaving the Dark Valley and going west towards Garbage was her only real option now. Going dead south, directly away from her pursuers had been a mistake. It seemed amateurish in hindsight to run directly away from the bandits, to be herded by them in such a manner.

Sinon stepped back into the shade of the tree line. Over her shoulder she could see two of her pursuers moving up towards her position at a low run, their fellows at their backs, prepared to cover them. The enemy at her front seemed unsure as to what was going on exactly. Confusion was key.

Pulling a grenade from a pouch she pulled the pin and gave it a good throw. It was joined by a grenade in another direction shortly after.

o0o0o

Aiko was furious. Her anger was mostly directed at the person who had led a huge gang of bandits to their position, risking Yuuki and herself.

She realised though, as satisfying as it would be, simply shooting the interloper and handing their body over to the bandits likely would not play out how she would like. Now she was stuck in a building, quickly about to be surrounded on several sides, their guest and the bandits shooting at each other. Thankfully the building had brick walls, and would stand up to some gunfire. They were in the attic though, which didn't offer such cover.

All she could mutter was "shit" repeatedly as she crawled across the rafters towards hard cover, trailing behind Yuuki was slightly in front of her.

She could hear the methodical thump of a large calibre rifle. Thankfully it seemed most of the bandit fire was directed towards whoever they were instead of at the vulnerable roof.

Yuuki reached the hole and awkwardly turned to climb down, desperately trying to keep a low profile. Every so often Aiko could feel the impact of small splinters as a bullet passed through a rafter or a roofing shingle. She wished she was already on the groun but instead found herself following Yuuki down the ladder.

Yuuki was at the bottom, crouched down with her PPS-43 up and ready. Aiko unfolded the stock on her carbine and nudged up behind her.

"I think we should go out the back," she suggested.

"What about our stuff?" asked Yuuki quietly.

The basement where their pack was hidden was on the side of the house where their interloper was.

"We'll come back for it later. They won't find it in the basement."

She wasn't risking Yuuki in this for an artefact.

"I'll cover you," said Aiko.

Yukki nodded too her before she turned towards the bandit side of the house, carbine up. Tense and waiting, she could hear some shuffling as Yuuki crawled along the floor. Bullets continued to pound the house, the odd ricochet bouncing down the hallway in a cloud of broken plaster.

"Clear," called Yuuki a few moments later, only slightly audible over the sound of gunfire.

Aiko stayed low, crawling on her belly towards the back room of the house. She became acutely aware at that moment how hard she was breathing, far harder than she should be given how much she had just exerted.

Eventually she reached her twin at the end of the hallway. With several walls between them and the shooters they felt comfortable rising to a crouch.

"It's a long way to cover," said Yuuki.

Looking out the back window she could see what Yuuki meant. There was a good one or two-hundred metres from the building to the nearest hard cover. The hills were small and very softly undulating, and there were sporadic bushes and saplings, but not enough to stop them from taking a bullet to the back.

"We have to check bandits aren't coming up the sides before we run for it," said Aiko.

There was a slim window where the house would silhouette them from the bandits, but if the bandits had made any moves to surround the house the window would be closed to them. Yuuki began to move to the east side window and Aiko followed.

In the few seconds she waited she could see the muzzle of her AK shaking slightly, her hands were shaking from the nerves. She kept her trigger finger sticking out slightly as another stalker had taught them, far away from the trigger where it she could easily have accidentally fired a round in her current condition, even though the safety lever was to _safe._ It was just a good habit to be in.

"Anything?" she asked after a few moments, glancing back towards her sister.

Some ratty curtains shielded Yuuki from view while she peeked through.

"I can't see anything from here," she replied after a few moments.

They turned around and headed for the west side of the house, pausing momentarily as they covered each other as they passed in view of the hallway.

On the west side was a small high window above a toilet. Nowhere near tall enough to see out, Yuuki climbed up onto of the toilet rim and stood on the tips of her toes. Yuuki quickly made an unsatisfied humming sound.

"I can see some bandits. They've already moved up maybe half-way. One of them has a belt-fed machine gun, the rest rifles."

Aiko gave a tight frown as she considered it. The only other option was to go back into the corridor and reach one of the bedrooms where the trapdoor into the basement was. It put them close to their interloper and on the side of the house being shot up by the bandits, it was also an awful defensive position. All it would take is a single grenade and they would die in a conflagration of shrapnel and overpressure.

Did they have a choice though? Yuuki had come to a similar conclusion.

"Maybe with them shooting at that person they won't notice us?" suggested Yuuki.

It was risky at best, but the gunfire hadn't really abated. They may end up being single minded about it, but with dozens of them they might not. It was also possible the interloper has moved rooms too, completely cutting off the basement.

"I want to take a look," said Aiko, out of ideas.

Yuuki jumped down and they shuffled around each other in the cramped bathroom before Aiko climbed up. Peering out she could confirm that Yuuki had said. There was definitely a large belt-fed machine gun set up on the hillside and a few other bandits scattered under some bushes. A few more were moving across the hillside towards the uncovered rear of the house. Their window truly was closing now.

She was searching for more bandits hidden in the grass when the window suddenly shattered. She distantly noted someone screamed as she slipped off the toilet and collided with the wall before hitting the rust-stained tile floor. Bullets pounded the wall inside the bathroom as Yuuki tried to drag her out of the small cubical and into the room proper.

As Yuuki helped her sit upright the world spun and she felt faint. She could feel blood running down her face, but was pretty sure she hadn't been shot. It was probably where she had hit the wall. Yuuki tried to tell her something but she barely listened as her ears and head pounded.

As she tried to stand up it took a few seconds for Yuuki to figure out what she was trying to do and help her. They were in a bad situation with no clear way out, now made much worse by the dizziness she was now feeling. She took a moment to gingerly touch her face and forehead, trying to figure out what she had done to herself. It didn't take long to get a lot of blood on her hands. The cut seemed to be above the hairline. It didn't really matter right now.

Her sister was looking at her worriedly.

"We're going to have to run," said Yuuki, taking control of the situation.

It wasn't a great idea, but she was lost for an alternative. At a full sprint they would be exposed for a bit over twenty seconds. She wasn't sure how long she stood there, dazed, trying to come up with an alternative.

The decision was taken out of her hands however when Yuuki jumped. It took a moment for Aiko to realise what was going on before a figure with a Dragunov came into the room. The person had the long and awkward rifle pointed up as they changed a magazine. Suddenly wide eyes, it took a moment for the girl to pause her forward moment before she started to shove a fresh magazine into her rifle.

As Aiko sluggishly realised the person before them was a threat, she managed to bring her carbine up and fumble with the safety lever before thumbing it down to _auto_ , but by the time she had her sticky bloody hand around the pistol grip and was ready to fire the girl already had her rifle level and pointed at her.

The universe seemed to shrink at the moment as she remembered a stark memory back to their first day in this hellscape. All that mattered now was not repeating what had happened, but she couldn't for the life of her figure out how to resolve this. She felt strangely helpless, with no recourse.

Her opponent seemed to agree. The girl had a firm grip on her rifle, eyes never leaving her, but made no move to kill her, stuck in the same stalemate.

Aiko could feel every heartbeat thundering through her ears. The only solace was that the rifle was pointed at her, that in her death those Yuuki would be safe, and this girl would die.

Aiko noted that outside there was still gunfire, not truly abating, before the girl glanced momentarily to her right, at Yuuki. She didn't dare take her eyes off the girl to look, but wondered why Yuuki, who had reacted long before both of them, hadn't managed to get off a shot.

o0o0o

At the sound of footsteps Yuuki reached down to grab her sub-machine gun only to find it wasn't hanging on her front by its sling. She had had it when Aiko had almost caught a bullet, but she must have dropped it somewhere along the line. She turned momentarily to see it on the floor near the doorway to the bathroom. She hadn't gotten around to slinging it over herself when she had scrambled down from the attic and had dropped it dragging Aiko out.

She began to walk back towards it when it clicked that she needed a gun in her hand that instant. She fumbled with the flap on the leather holster at her waist. It fully enclosed the handgun and had a small brass button on to keep it closed. It was good for stopping the handgun from ever falling out, but bad if she ever needed to grab it quickly like she did now.

But the time she looked up from the now open holster and held the Makarov in a two-handed grip towards their interloper, the girl was beginning to level her now reloaded Dragunov towards them.

She should have squeezed the trigger at the moment. She could have made the three-metre shot and hit the girl in the face before she had brought her gun to bear. But she couldn't do it. She was about her own age, caked in dust, her face covered in small bloody scratches, and to Yuuki she looked bloody terrified at that moment.

As the girl gave her a momentary glance, she knew she had to resolve this without bloodshed. They were surrounded on every side and grossly out-numbered. They had no choice.

She slowly lowered her gun.

"Everyone needs to calm down," said Yuuki.

Aiko didn't move but the girl glanced at her again, her eyes widening momentarily. With her own gun lowered, Yuuki took a second to glance at her sister. Aiko's face was streaked with blood.

"Please, everyone," she said again.

Realising her gun was still in her hand she put it in her holster and closed the flap. The girl and Aiko remained unmoved.

"Aiko…"

Aiko glanced at her with a look of concern before her eyes quickly returned to the girl.

"Both of you need to lower your weapons before we get slaughtered by bandits."

Still neither said a word. One deep breath.

"My name's Yuuki, what's yours?"

o0o0o

It was a bizarre question when she held the girl's companion at gunpoint.

She had been careless. She had a nearly two-hundred and seventy degree view from the house's corner bedroom. She had watched the bandits quickly form a line and spread out. She knew none had slipped behind the house yet. In fact, she had moved to the opposite end of the house to stop them from approaching the house from the rear.

It was another bout of extreme carelessness for the day, and the girl who had dropped her handgun had had her dead to rights.

She swallowed and tried to keep her breathing under control. This was every fear condensed into a single point.

"It's Sinon," she replied quietly, having her first conversation with anyone in more than a month.

The girl who had asked her name was understandably nervous.

"Aiko, Sinon, please lower your guns," said the girl with as much authority as she could muster.

She knew there was only three outcomes here: they lowered their guns, they killed each other, or they stalled long enough that the bandits got them. But she couldn't trust the other blood-soaked girl wouldn't kill her the moment she dropped her guard.

Yuuki made her own decision though, and tried to step between them, here hands up and reaching out to grab the barrels of both guns. The other girl blinked incredulously for a moment at Yuuki before taking a step to the left, trying to stop Yuuki from blocking her clear shot. She followed the other girl with her muzzle, trying to do the same.

"Stop it," said Yuuki.

"Back up, Yuuki," ordered the other girl, speaking for the first time.

The other girl was beginning to lose her cool. She tried to reach over the handguard of her carbine with her left off-hand and push Yuuki out the way but didn't have the arm reach for it. Yuuki responded by snatching out and managed to get a grip on the carbine. Sinon didn't resist when Yuuki grabbed the end of her Dragunov and pushed both guns away from them.

Yuuki firmly in between them, she dropped the muzzle of her rife to the floor. The other girl though didn't seem to want to comply with Yuuki's request though Yuuki had forced her muzzle off to the side.

"Aiko, let it go," she said, back towards Sinon.

She stepped to the side slightly. The other girl seemed to have a dazed look on her face that she hadn't noticed in between the blood. The other girl's grip eventually slackened and she dropped her carbine onto its sling before Yuuki pulled her into a hug. She couldn't hear the whispered words between the two girls.

She stood awkwardly there for a moment before the gunfire outside brought her back to reality. The bandits seemed to be taking occasional shots at the windows to remind her they were still there.

They had been given precious minutes to move up the west side of the house and were probably about to take advantage of the east even though it was lower ground. The only western window she could see from this room was a cramped bathroom where someone had discarded a weapon. Her Dragunov was probably longer than the bathroom was wide, making it difficult to stick the muzzle out of the high window without some maneuvering. Her AKM was discarded in the other room, completely out of ammo.

She could lean out of the back door and window slightly to get a few shots, but it still left a significant blind spot to the west.

It took a moment for Sinon to remember what the girl's name was.

"Yuuki, we need someone covering the west side."

Yuuki disengaged from the other girl, one cheek smeared with the other girl's blood. The other girl was still a bit dazed as Yuuki went to collect the discarded weapon near the bathroom door.

"Have you got any 7.62 AK ammo?" she asked.

"Uhh – no, just the 5.45 stuff," Yuuki replied.

The other girl stood there uncomfortably as Sinon mentally counted up how much ammo she probably had left as she headed for the back door. A careful glance outside confirmed no one could see her from the door before she stepped out and creeped along the wall to the west side.

Carefully leaning out, making sure not to expose any more of herself than she had to, she found her first target squatting with his rifle up. A headshot was easy to make at one-hundred or so metres and he hit the ground hard. Leaning out a bit more it seemed his fellows hadn't noticed she was shooting back again and she managed to score another kill before one of the bandits call out " _khovatysya!_ " and they kissed the dirt.

Withdrawing behind the corner of the building to some delayed return gunfire she made her way back inside to find the other girl was leaning against the wall, some of the blood on her face wiped off. The girl didn't seem to be completely there. Yuuki was in the bathroom doorway and was staring between the toilet and the high bathroom window, clearly looking like she was about to try and shoot from there. Sinon could see the similarities between the two now.

"One room down, on the left," she said to Yuuki, pointing down the corridor.

Yuuki looked slightly unsure but followed her directions none the less. The centre room might not offer the best angle of visibility compared to a corner room with windows on two sides, but it was better than trying to shoot atop a toilet bowl. Turning back the other girl – maybe Yuuki's sister? – she wasn't sure what to do with her.

Sinon gave her head a shake and approached the east side window. The house was on a gentle slope of the side of a hill. To the east was lower lying land, giving their attackers the disadvantage in cover. Peeking through the curtains she could see a pair of bandits trying to make best use of what little cover there was near a small rocky outcrop.

o0o0o

It was strange to see Aiko look so uncertain. Yuuki was sure she'd be fine for a few moments as she reminded the bandits why approaching the house was a bad idea. The east-side middle room was also where the ladder to the attic was.

The window curtains were lying on the floor and the large and glass-less window didn't offer her much concealment so she peeked around the doorway for cover. It only took a second for the bandits she could see to move slightly and begin shooting. Sticking the muzzle of her PPS-43 around the corner she let off a few long bursts through the window. The bandit's fire slackened slightly.

Taking up some initiative, Yuuki got down on her belly and crawled across the doorway, under the cover of the window sill. Clear on the other side, she moved down the corridor at a low crouch and reached the two rooms on either side of the corridor at the south end of the house.

The front door was cracked around the hinges and the lock, but had been placed back into its door frame, spent brass and empty AK magazines littered the floor in both rooms and an empty AK was abandoned against the wall in the east-side room with the manhole to the basement.

Seeing the manhole cover, Yuuki realised she should take the opportunity to grab their pack. Crawling along the floor to not expose herself through the windows, she slid off the wooden cover and climbed into the basement before grabbing her pack and climbing back up. Pushing the pack through the hole she followed. She stared at the AK for a few moments before grabbing it and sweeping up the empty magazines.

Back in the hallway Yuuki took a second to peek out a hole in the door. She could see a few bandits a lot closer than she was comfortable with.

o0o0o

Reloading her SVD, Sinon approached the other girl. She was still standing there clearly unsure, with her hands around her carbine, muzzle down.

"If you're not doing anything do you think you can reload some magazines for me?"

Sinon cringed almost the moment she finished speaking at her own rudeness.

The other girl looked her in the eye before nodding so Sinon dumped her empty SVD magazines and some miscellaneous loose ammo on her.

With a rough plan in mind, she headed to the rear window near the back door and sat down, and propped her rifle up on the window sill. The only way she could see them getting out of this was by keeping the rear of the house clear of bandits and then running when it got dark, relying on the low light to disappear into the night. At the window, she'd be able to put down any bandits that moved southwards as they approached her arcs of fire and they'd have difficulty returning fire, appearing in ones and not being in any sort of entrenched position.

The first bandit appeared a few minutes later, running across her field of view, before taking cover behind a sturdy tree. As soon as he popped his head out she removed it. She waited for some more bandits to run the gauntlet but they didn't come. It was acceptable and suited her purposes just fine.

Her strange tranquillity was broken by the snap of bullets passing her by. It took a moment to register than the bullets were coming down the corridor from the other end of the house, and out again through the back door. There was a scream and the other girl spurred to action, dropping the magazine she had been reloading and scattering 7.62x54mmR ammo over the floor.

The other girl stood by the corner to the hallway and with her AK raised, peeked out. A bit concerned by what was happening, Sinon got up, momentarily exposed herself to the risk of gunfire down the hallway, and took cover around the opposite corner.

Taking her own peek around the corner she couldn't see Yuuki but quickly withdrew when more gunfire pierced the front door.

"Yuuki? Yuuki?" shouted the other girl.

Sinon mentally counted down the seconds it took Yuuki to respond.

"I'm – I'm alright," she replied weakly.

"What happened?" the other girl shouted.

Again Yuuki took a few moments to respond.

"I forgot doors aren't very bullet proof." She sounded almost embarrassed.

Their discussion was broken by another burst of gunfire from the front door. As soon as they stopped the other girl leant out and put a few bursts of her own through the front door.

"Yuuki, you're going to have to crawl."

The other girl turned to her at that with an expression of anger.

"She can't stay there," she said. "We'll cover her."

The other girl adopted a very sour look.

If luck was with them the bandits would be down low enough they wouldn't be able to hit Yuuki as she crawled up the corridor, putting her in a position of defilade.

Sinon leant her SVD against the wall and pulled out her handgun. As long as it could cover the distance it didn't matter much what calibre you used for covering fire. Her GSh-18's eighteen round magazine also gave her an advantage over her SVD's ten.

The other girl still looked sour.

"Are you ready, Yuuki?" she called out.

"Yes."

"Go!"

Yuuki emerged from the far room on the left and Sinon and the other girl started firing. Sinon tried to keep it below a round a second. She could see Yuuki flinch slightly each time she fired. She almost stopped shooting when she saw Yuuki dragging a bag and her abandoned AKM behind herself.

"What are you doing?" she muttered quietly.

She could see the other girl glance at her before she too resumed firing.

As Yuuki came into arm's length the other girl reached out and grabbed her by the webbing, dragging her and the backpack the remaining short distance around the corner to cover.

"Watch that corridor!" ordered Sinon, before checking the east-side window.

She'd given the bandits ample time to move up unmolested. Peeking through the curtains she could see the bandit near the rocky outcrop that had gone to ground when she had popped his fellow was doing a good job with cover. He noticed her after only a few seconds and hugged the rock, preventing her from getting a decent shot.

Crouching, she approached the back window carefully when someone started shooting at the east-side window. From the low angle they crossed the room and hit the ceiling, dropping bits of plaster and wood on the other girl and Yuuki. The other girl shook the debris off while Yuuki loaded up her magazines.

Reaching the back window she carefully peeked out and took cover again. There was another bandit at the same tree where she had previously dropped one. He had his rifle up and ready for her, responding with a few controlled bursts that hit the window sill and the inside wall.

She absolutely needed to stop that bastard from covering his fellows as they moved up.

"I need some suppressing fire," she asked.

The other girl and Yuuki looked between themselves for a few moments before Yuuki started to move towards her at a low crouch.

"Up over there," she said, pointing at the back window on the other side of the door.

Yuuki moved up and kept under the window sill before glancing at her for orders.

"There's a tree about one-hundred out at our ten-o'clock," she said, pointing wards the ten-o'clock position. "There's a guy next to it with an AK. When I say _go_ I need you to pin him down. Don't expose yourself, he's got us sighted in."

The other girl was giving her the evil eye again while Yuuki looked a bit confused.

"Just take a second to see where he is and then blind fire at him," explained Sinon. "Really, don't expose yourself for more than a second."

Yuuki looked a bit nervous but did as instructed, bobbing her head out and then back in very quickly. A second or two later a few rounds sailed through the window.

"You got it?"

Yuuki nodded.

"Alright, on three – one, two, three!"

Yuuki stuck the muzzle of her sub-machine gun out the window and let off a burst while Sinon sat her SVD on the window sill, got a sight picture and waited. Each of Yuuki's bursts landed within three or four metres of the tree, enough for the bandit to take cover. Sinon waited for Yuuki to run dry, and waited some more, then the bandit stuck his head out.

o0o0o

The girl, Sinon, had handed her a grenade. She'd only needed one when four bandits had approached the unguarded front of the house. The grenade mopped most of them up, and the stragglers hadn't been able to advance down the hallway to the back room through AK fire.

Sinon had used another grenade an hour or so later, pushing it out the bathroom window when some bandits tried to hug the wall and move up the west side of the building. On the east side, Yuuki had waited quietly listening for anyone to try the same trick there, but it seemed the open window to shoot out deterred them.

None the less, by the time it hit nightfall Aiko was down to her last magazine for her AK, Yuuki had eaten through all of her loose ammo and was down to four full magazines, and the girl Sinon only had two or three magazines for her Dragunov remaining.

The plan hashed out by Sinon was all they had really. It wasn't perfect – far from it actually – but it was better than waiting until they ran out of ammo. Sinon had suggested going as soon as it got dark. Waiting any longer meant the bandit's eyes would adjust to the darkness, giving them the advantage.

She didn't like her though. Her head wasn't throbbing anymore and her chain of thoughts far clearer, but she felt Sinon had been far too presumptuous with ordering Yuuki about. Too careless with her safety. Still, Yuuki had been right; they had needed every gun.

"Are you ready?" asked Sinon quietly.

She had the backpack, Yuuki had her new _empty_ AKM underfolder slung over her back, and Sinon had a backpack of something.

She glanced at Yuuki.

"As I guess we'll ever be."

Sinon climbed out the back window first, the sight and sound of a door opening being too obvious even in the dark.

"Remember, don't shoot unless you have too."

Sinon had told them how she'd shot a bandit in the dark a few weeks ago from his muzzle flash. She couldn't really deny her AKS-74U's muzzle flash was obscene.

Sinon squatted down, cradling her Dragunov, carefully surveying the landscape for any movement. Yuuki climbed out the window behind her and she quickly got down low as well. She made to climb over as well when Sinon raised her hand. She paused. All she could heat was her own heartbeat pounding away.

Sinon slowly and deliberately raised her rifle and stared at something for a good fifteen agonising seconds before she lowered her rifle again.

Sinon muttered something, something that sounded like "he's already dead", before she carefully stood up, turned to face the two of them, and flicked her head to go.

They got about fifty metres before the gunfire started. She saw a green streak of a tracer some distance away, and heard the regular supersonic crack of bullets. The bandits were firing blind. By the time they hit the tree line the fire was already dying off and they kept up the pace, before slowing down five or so minutes later.

When they stopped they could see the lights of the stalker camp to the south.

"You can come with us, you know."

She wanted to tell this girl that her sister was mistaken, then she wasn't welcome, but that wasn't within her power. She couldn't tell Yuuki no.

* * *

Well this took ages. I spent literally months hung up on the scene where Sinon meets Aiko and Yuuki. Soon as I got it how I liked on Friday I managed to drop the following 4k out over Saturday and Sunday.

I really need some constructive criticism so please give.


	9. Chapter 7 Five Tales of Rostok Dreaming

This only took me a very long time.

* * *

 **Stalker Online**

 **Chapter 7:**

 **Five Tales of Rostok Dreaming**

 **D+41**

Kirito checked the time, counting down to the right moment. As the clock clicked over the pounding in his head diminished and the electric hum in the air died. Not as bad as an emission, but still a change in the air. It was a clear day and the sky was bright. To be honest with himself, he really didn't fancy doing this in the pitch black of the night.

He checked his rifle over, making sure the magazine was seated properly and the charging handle was all the way forward before starting the short jog along the path. He had about twenty minutes before the emitter under the old Yantar factory powered up again. If he was still near the factory when that happened his best bet was to use the three psyblock auto injectors he carried on himself and run to safety.

Psyblock was a strange drug to use. It warped your perception in difficult to describe ways and suppressed your emotions. It was hard to care about things under its influence. One of the other beta-testers had described it as like depersonalisation. He'd never seen that specific effect himself, but he could attest to the dulling of emotions.

Still, as he approached the gate to the factory he slowed to a halt and brought up his AK-103. Rounding the corner, there was a zombie only a few metres away. Before it could react he put two rounds into its head which cracked open like a watermelon. He could feel the other zombies in the overgrown receiving area turn towards the noise.

This was his second attempt at entering the factory for this job. Last time he'd spent far too much time putting down zombies that he'd had to retreat from the emitter before he could place the instrument for Professor Sakharov.

This time he ignored the extraneous zombies and immediately turned right. Before him was a gap between the factory fence and a large vehicle garage of some sort. Kirito jogged down the gap, reaching the far end of the receiving area. Peeking out he blessed his fortune as the zombies shambled towards his previous firing position. It would be a pain getting out, but for now it meant he could slip by.

Quickly navigating the stacks of pallets loaded with decaying items he used as cover as he passed the gantry crane, before he slipped down a small roadway behind the administrative block at edge of the receiving area.

Peeking around the next corner he could see another zombie leaning against the wall. Instead of his AK, Kirito left in hang on its sling as he drew his suppressed Makarov PB pistol. The zombie didn't notice him in the shadow of the building as he raised the handgun with both hands, aimed down the sights, and squeezed.

The gun made a small sound, like the sound you get when you open a bottle of compressed gas, as the bullet brained the zombie. It slid down the wall into a sitting position, the loudest noise being the zombie's shotgun clattering to the ground. Kirito momentarily regretted that he didn't have time to loot the corpse as he passed and entered the back door of the building.

Before him was a flight of stairs. He had to take them to the top of the building and then set up the device as instructed by the Professor. Down the stairs to the basement lead to the elevator that lead down to the X-Lab, X-16. They'd found it during the beta but couldn't power the elevator nor open the security gate to the ladder.

Someone would probably have to venture down there at some point. It wasn't a task he relished. Shaking his head he glanced at his PDA, he'd been here for five minutes.

His handgun back in its holster, he raised his rifle to his shoulder and prepared to check the doorways to the two corridors he had pass to reach the stairs. With passages like this, on opposite sides to each other, he really needed a partner. By himself he had to expose himself to both passageways, but could only cover and clear one passageway at a time.

Making a choice at random, he chose to check the left first. Leaning out, he depressed the button on the fore guard of his rifle, lighting up the torch. Sweeping the beam of light across the room revealed turned over tables and shattered ancient computers. Then, there was a roar.

Kirito jumped, and turned a full one-eighty at the noise. In the motion, his grip on his rifle's fore end slipped slightly, turning the torch off. As he readjusted and the light came back on, a disfigured visage was visible before him down the corridor. Hand raised, it gestured, pulling back its hand before pushing forward.

To Kirito it felt like his head was being crushed. He dimly felt the recoil of his rifle firing as he seized and hit the ground. There was a scream, before he took a moment to process that it was _his_ scream. He thought there was something on the edge of his memory, a face, cruel in nature.

Kirito wasn't sure how long it had been when he returned to his senses, but it had surely only been a few seconds at most. Blinking, he realised he had fallen sideways, landing out of sight of the controller.

It had to be a controller. There was no other creature to describe what had just happened.

He scrambled unsteadily to his feet. His head was pounding and his vision dimming, but he thought he could hear its footsteps as the controller walked the short distance down the corridor towards him. Deciding discretion was the better part of valour he turned, and – holding the handrail firmly to steady himself – climbed up the stairs to the next floor.

On the second floor landing he removed an auto-injector from its pouch on his armour, removed the cap and stabbed himself firmly in the leg with it before discarding it on the ground. Then there was a groan behind him.

Turning, Kirito came face to face with a zombie, as it slowly raised its weapon, Kirito tried to beat it to the draw. From the hip, he jammed his rifle's trigger repeatedly, spraying bullets until the zombie toppled over.

Remembering what he was here for, he turned again and went up the next level of stairs. Rifle up, the next level was clear, and he went up again, reaching a door propped open with a sun-bleached chair that lead to the roof.

Setting up the device was quick and easy. Having practiced a few times in the lab he just had to unfold the legs and turn on the power, making sure it stood upright. Turning back towards the door, he wasn't sure how long it would take the greatly disfigured controller to climb the stairs up after him. Not willing to risk it he pulled the chair holding the door open out, allowing it to slam shut and then jammed the chair under the doorhandle, locking it closed.

He took a few moments to breath before pulling out his PDA. He had ten minutes before the emitter powered back up.

There was blood on his PDA. Looking more closely he could see blood on his hands too. Panicking for a second, wondering if he had been shot by the zombie earlier, Kirito gives himself a once over before quickly find the source of the blood; his nose. He hadn't noticed the stuff running down his chin and all over his armour. He rubbed the tacky substance between his fingers for a few moments before deciding it wasn't an immediate problem.

Walking towards the edge of the roof he looked down. The zombies must had heard the gunfire because they were wandering towards the administration block he was standing on.

Oh yeah, he was four floors up.

There was what looked like a fire escape staircase on one side, the dark side of the building he had slipped in through. He didn't recall passing a set of stairs on the way through. None the less, he didn't see any other way down off the roof. Checking carefully for waiting zombies, given stairs offered little in the way of ballistic protection, he trod carefully as the metal groaned. Snaking his way down two levels, he reached what should have been level two to find out why she hadn't seen any stairs; he would have to jump down the last level.

Falling over as he hit the ground, he realised he hadn't yet recovered from the bout with the controller. Getting back to his feet he surveyed the area before turning back towards the entry route. A zombie turned the corner from the receiving yard which he shot twice, before quickly dodging between the pallets of factory materials and towards the path behind the workshop.

As he reached the small open stretch between the path and the factory gate he slowed and carefully leaned out. Again, the zombies were following the sound of gunfire and walking away. He jogged out the gate and back towards the Ecologist's lab.

o0o0o

His nose seemed to have stopped bleeding on its own by the time he reached the mobile bunker.

Dumping his rifle on the bed in the small lab dormitory he unclipped his armour. There was blood all down his camouflaged shirt and down his body-armour. Holding it under the light he could see the large stain. He wasn't even sure how to remove things like stains in the game, it wasn't like you had to clean your clothes.

Kirito's mind drifted to the uncomfortable thought about what was happening in the real world. Someone was probably taking care of him, keeping him clean. He had no control over it and he shouldn't worry, but the uncomfortable thought was still there.

He was about to put his armour down again when he notched a small scuff in the fabric. Bringing it back under the light he looked more closely; it was a hole, a bullet hole.

Quickly, he undid the Velcro pounch holding the ceramic plate in place and slid it out. Holding it under the light he could see the spiderweb pattern of cracks across its front surface originating at the plate's centre. There was a crater in the middle and a small piece of jagged metal stick out. It was a bullet that had hit him front, dead-on, centre-mass. If it wasn't for the armour the bullet would probably have killed him.

Collapsing onto the bed, Kirito covered his face with his hands and groaned. As he took a few deep breaths he considered who had gotten the shot off. He had shot at a few bandits as he passed through the wilds, but he didn't think any of them had done it. A few zombies he had downed in his last few days in Yantar had certainly shot at him, again though he wasn't sure any had actually managed to connect. He was sure he would have noticed someone shooting him.

Then there was that zombie, not half an hour ago, on the second floor of the Yantar Factory administration block. He had been in such a daze at the time, made a lot of mistakes.

Fuck it, he had been paid and he needed a break. He was going back to Rostok.

 **D+42**

Asuna sighed. Godfrey had been right; it was easy work. Mind-numbingly boring too. Guard duty so far had meant sitting around, occasionally interspaced with shooting at some wildlife. Her previous shifts had been duty on the south gate – on the road to Garbage and onto Cordon, but today was their first stint guarding the north.

She was joined by two other players; Tenko, a girl a few years younger than her, and Jatta, a guy in his mid-twenties. The watch timetable meant they had been matched up with each other each shift. She wasn't sure if this was the work of a player, or if the NPC that controlled the watch schedule was not very imaginative. The other two were NPCs. They talked when spoken too, but weren't really conversationalists.

Duty wasn't short of equipment. They'd given her a uniform and an allowance of ammo, food and some basic medication, and on duty they had a belt-fed PKM machine gun to fall back on when things got hot. They didn't let her trade in her SKS for something better though, she had to wait a while or take on more dangerous missions for that.

Still, it was cushy, and after only shooting a pack of dogs led by a pair of pseudodogs, the next shift arrived.

"Anything interesting happen?" asked an older girl she didn't know.

Jatta spoke up.

"No, just some dogs," he said. "Bit of gunfire in the Wilds too but it was a fair distance off."

The next shift began to take their positions before Jatta spoke again.

"Are we good to go?"

"Yeah, you stand relieved."

At those words, the NPCs on duty immediately relaxed and wandered off to do whatever NPCs did while the replacement NPCs slotted in. Following suit, she, Jatta and Tenko headed back towards the centre of the inhabited part of Rostok, leaving the new players to stand guard. Duty was somewhat regimented, and leaving your post before replacement would cause you a lot of problems.

"What are you guys doing now?" asked Tenko. The girl was young, but seemed keen to make friends everywhere. Asuna wasn't sure how the girl had ended up in Rostok. Now, Jatta she could see getting here. From what she had seen so far he switched from relaxed and quiet off duty, to serious and calm on duty. It was like he was built for this dangerous work.

Jatta shrugged.

"Still waiting for a friend to rock up," he said. "So I'm off to the bar."

Tenko nodded.

"I think I will too, I could do with some food" she replied. "What about you, Asuna?"

"I might drop by later, I wanted to speak to Godfree," she replied.

Jatta and Tenko waved her off as they reached the point where they split up.

Asuna passed the NPC trying to encourage people to sign up for the Arena – the gladiator pit where you could enter fights to the death against bandits and various monsters. She doubted anyone entered them now, but people could watch and most nights they had various fights between NPCs and wildlife.

The NPCs at the gate to Duty's compound nodded at her before she followed the route to Godfree's office. She wasn't sure exactly how Godfree had advanced up the ranks so fast, even though he wasn't actually that high up. Technically he was _Lieutenant Godfree_ of Duty. Some of the NPC officers would shout if you addressed him as something other than sir if they were in earshot. It was strange to see the NPCs acting that way.

His rank got him an office to himself at ground level. Duty's leader, General Voronin, and most of his senior staff including Colonel Petrenko lived and worked in the bunker under Rostok. She "met them" once (as much as you can meet an NPC) and had not had any reason to speak to them since. For good reason.

"Ah, Asuna," he said, looking up from his work. "What can I do for you?"

She wasn't exactly sure how to approach it, but she was here now, and just had to spit it out.

"I was…" she said, giving herself a second to think. "I was hoping you might have some other work for me."

Godfree looked at her in confusion for a second.

"Like work on the patrols?" he asked curiously.

"No," she said, drawing out the word. "I'm not sure where to even start with that kind of fighting. I was thinking more like the administrative stuff. Organising things, managing people, trading supplies, that kind of thing."

She wasn't sure administrative was the right word there. Administrative would be correct in the business world, a world her father had encouraged and her mother had frowned at, but she wasn't sure it was correct here in a military-like organisation.

"Well…" he replied contemplatively as she looked around the room.

There was clearly some of that going on here, plans and notes Godfree had written covered his desk while open filling cabinets had papers and folders handing out. Maps and diagrams adorned the walls too, along with photos of various things.

"Have you got some experience with that sort of thing?"

He didn't say it, but she presumed he was referring to her age there. She could see why a guy in his late twenties or early thirties could be skeptical a teen had some experience in the area.

"My father is the director of a… large company," she said carefully, being sure not to name it or explain how big it was exactly. "I've had some hands-on experience in how it all works."

Godfree nodded before shrugging.

"Truthfully I don't have much experience myself. I've just been muddling through it."

"What have you been working on," she asked after a few moments. "If you can say that is."

Godfree waved her off.

"Most of it is just what I said at the meeting. You were there, I remember?" Asuna nodded. "Yeah, so it's mostly just getting myself in a good position and getting things ready in the meantime. Once we've got enough players inside Duty, we'll push out the NPC leaders and take over. Then, we'll be able to direct the NPCs about and allocate resources how we want."

Asuna nodded in understanding.

"What do you need then?"

o0o0o

She and Godfree spent a few hours going through what Godfree had done so far. Once they called it a night they headed to the bar. Asuna saw Tenko slumped in a corner asleep, her food and drink discarded on the table, while Jatta chatted with some people on another table.

Working with Godfree was what she had had in mind, when she wanted to help, so Rostok was the right place to be.

 **D+44**

Sinon was tense, to put it lightly. Yuuki could see how firmly the girl gripped her Dragunov. Her eyes darted about the many people congregating around the stalker camp. Aiko glanced worriedly to them occasionally as she tried to negotiate with another stalker.

The plan was to sell some of their stuff to pay the toll, then fence their artefacts at the Bar. None of them had been to the Bar before, but it was supposedly large, safe and well defended. A bit like the Rookie village except filled with more experienced stalkers.

As they'd crossed the Dark Valley and the Garbage through the night it had snowed lightly. The Zone had taken on its own strange beauty.

"How about some ammo instead?" asked Aiko. The boy had already passed on the PPS-43 to replace his PPSh-41.

"Hmm, what can you do for fifty rubles?" he replied uncertainly.

Aiko paused as she considered it.

"I'll give you fifty rounds of 7.62 _Tokarev_ for fifty rubles."

The boy shook his head.

"I'm not that desperate for ammo."

Yuuki tuned the negotiations out as she gazed around the small stalker encampment. It was in the ruins of a collapsed building only a few hundred metres from the gate to Rostok. The parts of the building still standing were a good vantage point and you could take cover from emissions in the remaining lower levels. It wasn't a bad strong point except for the fact it was the first settlement you would come across as you left the Dark Valley.

Yuuki tried to give Sinon a small reassuring smile.

"You alright?"

Sinon just gave her an indistinct " _hmm"_ , not meeting her eyes.

"Come on, the stairs to up top are over here."

Sinon gave her a curious look.

"You're not worried about leaving your sister alone?" she asked quietly.

Yuuki shrugged.

"Not too much; there's a lot of people about. You'd have to be really stupid to try something. Even if someone else didn't immediately cut you down you'd never be forgiven as a player killer."

Sinon didn't move for a few moments, still watching Aiko and the boy negotiate before she suddenly relaxed and turned to follow.

The remaining standing portion of the building was an old fire escape. Almost every floor opened out to mostly missing floors, usually only consisting of a small jagged ledge of reinforced concrete. At the top floor a slightly larger ledge remained and a small nest of sandbags had been contracted. Two stalkers sat there, one watching out towards the Dark Valley and the other – a bit more relaxed – watching out towards the gate and the Garbage.

"Hey," said Yuuki to the two stalkers on watch. They replied with a few grunts of acknowledgement.

The remains of the top floor ran along a narrow but passable ledge along the last standing wall of the building.

"Along here," encouraged Yuuki as she did her best not to look down. It wasn't a path so narrow it was dangerous to tread, but there wasn't a railing or anything else to stop a fall either.

As she reached a larger section she turned to find Sinon following her route gingerly, hugging the wall. When Sinon reached her, she gave Yuuki a pained expression before turning and watching the dozen or so stalkers below, cradling her rifle in her arms.

She seemed happy to stand there for several minutes before asking her question.

"Why did you bring me up here?" she asked.

Yuuki shrugged, even though Sinon – still gazing out over the stalkers – couldn't see her do so.

"You seemed like you needed some space."

Sinon turned to her.

"Yeah," she replied sadly.

"Come on, take a set," said Yuuki, gesturing to a slab of concrete next to a window looking out east, before making some small talk.

Sinon wasn't sure how she would deal with Rostok.

 **D+48**

Her detector crackled as she scampered up the side of the garbage pile. Bits of debris rolled down as she passed.

Scavenging wasn't glamorous work. She earned a pittance pulling scraps of electronics and bits of copper wire from various bits of junk that scattered the radioactive landscape. But it was pretty consistent; while the anomaly divers would only occasionally bring in an artefact at the roll of a dice, she could bring in various bits of scrap consistently day after day.

As Silica reached the top and her Geiger counter became more urgent, she paused for a second to take in the view. She could see in the far distance the huge form of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The large dark grey Sarcophagus surrounding reactor Number 4, and the red and white striped ventilation stack next to it.

Closer she could see the apartment blocks that made up the town of Pripyat, and closer still the factory complex of Rostok. Off to the right was a large antenna array that supposedly made up one of the antennas for the Brain Scorcher. And on the left was more factories and towns in the distance.

It made her feel even smaller, knowing the vast distances and incredible odds stacked against them.

The counter's shrill crackling brought her back to her task. Nearby was a dinged-up steel cabinet of some sort which she decided it would be her first salvage of the day.

Leaving her PPSh-41 on the ground in arms reach and using a piece of steel rebar she kept around for exactly this purpose, she wedged it into the gap around the door and put her weight behind it, quickly popping it open. Inside was an assortment of electrical parts and copper cable which she quickly started disassembling as quickly as possible.

Shrugging her backpack off her shoulders, Silica loaded everything in and started searching for a new target. A short distance away was an equipment rack of some sort. The kind used to hold scientific instruments and the like. Several of the panels had lights on them, one had a roll of yellowing paper on the front and another had an old-style TV-screen.

Silica figured this was probably worthwhile. Specialty items used in scientific equipment was more valuable than the run of the mill junk she usually pulled. She wasn't certain what the equipment I the racks was, but she figured it was more valuable assembled than in pieces. As she unscrewed the first part and slid it out of the rack she realised how heavy it was; it was probably a good twenty kilos, on top of the other junk in her pack. The other bits weren't exactly the same as the rack she was holding, but they probably weighed something similar.

Deciding she could only take one rack plus her pack right at that moment, she decided to leave the three remaining racks for later.

A girl in the railway shed an hour's walk away or so was running a side business reselling their junk. Some of it was supposedly more valuable being sent to Cordon for outside sale, others were more valuable going deeper into the Zone for the Ecologists, other factions and stalkers to use in experiments. She was running a business working out the best place to send it, which in turn meant they could get more for it. It also meant they didn't need to lug their junk to Rostok or to Sidorovich.

As she gingerly tried to get down the garbage pile, her heavy pack on her back and the scientific instrument cradled in her arms weighing her down, Silica slipped. She always tried to fall backwards – slipping was just something that sometimes happened climbing up and down these wretched piles – but due to a combination of bad timing and her forward foot with all the weight on it having been the foot to slip on whatever slipped metallic object was busied just below the surface she went face forward.

The device slipped out of her hands as she desperately tried to mitigate the damage, but the heavy load in her pack made that very difficult. As she hit the ground she dimly noted the sound of rubles vanishing into thin air as the scientific instrument smashed against the ground, and again, and again before she and it stopped at the bottom.

Silica spent several seconds in a daze before pushing herself upright. Giving herself a once over she found herself – almost miraculously – without any serious injuries; just a few scrapes and bruises. Looking back up the hill she could see the scuff mark in the dirt where she had slipped. It was a long way up.

Breathing hard, she turned to the battered remains of the device. The front glass screen was completely missing, the glass fragments that once made it up were probably scattered all over the Garbage. The casing he popped open and was bent, and right there…

… was a small dirty brown object floating a short distance from the battered casing and rolling lazily in the air.

Silica's eyes widened almost instantly.

As she approached she could make out the artefact's skeleton like structure. Its shape reminded her of a lantern, like the sort you would put a candle inside of. Pulling out her detector she turned on artefact detection mode. It immediately let out a long beep and flashed, and with every step she took towards it the rate of beeping increased, as did the radiation counter.

She didn't have an artefact container to safely transport it, and while she could burn through her stock of valuable radioprotectant and antirad to get it to a trader she wouldn't have many Rubles left over after doing that. She needed a container, which was probably why someone had stashed the artefact in the device to begin with.

o0o0o

"Hey, Silica," said the girl, not looking up from the antiquated computer she was dismantling as she absentmindedly tucked her short hair behind an ear.

"Hey, Liz," Silica replied.

She dumped the smashed up scientific instrument on the table before shrugging off her pack and placing it next to it. At the sound, Lisbeth looked up.

"That's… a bit banged up."

Silica deflated.

"I slipped."

Lisbeth stared at the device for a few moments before getting up and inspecting it. As she peeled back its cover her face tightened.

"How whole was it when you found it?"

Silica sighed.

"No marks, nothing. As I said, I slipped going down the garbage pile. It bounced down a good twenty metres of hill and then hit the bottom."

"Yeah," replied Lisbeth tiredly. "The Barman in Rostok has a pretty decent offer out for an oscilloscope at the moment. This isn't worth much now. The display tube is dust, as are most of the vacuum tubes."

Almost impossible as it was, Silica managed to deflate even more.

"There's some more equipment on the rack I pulled this from, but this was the only one like this."

Lisbeth looked up from her inspection of the oscilloscope's shattered remains.

"Do you know what the other things were?"

Silica shrugged.

"A couple of them were just almost blank panels with rows of lights on them. One was some sort of printer with a big roll of paper in it."

Lisbeth just nodded. She couldn't make any promises about their value before seeing them, but they sounded useful. The Barman was always buying scientific equipment. It was probably on sold to the more scientifically minded factions like the Ecologists or Clear Sky. She'd make direct connections with those factions someday, instead of using the Barman as an intermediary.

Silica stepped closer to Lisbeth's work bench. Noting the girl wanted to ask something quietly she leaned in.

"Have you got an artefact container, somewhere?"

Liz raised an eyebrow at the question. She knew Silica wasn't a diver, but then again it wasn't exactly strange for diggers to run across artefacts on occasion.

"Yeah, it's five-hundred rubles."

Silica's face twisted slightly at the price.

"You know I'm good for a loan, Liz. I'll bring it back in a day or so, with an artefact you can hawk. If I pissed you off I wouldn't have anyone to sell my scrap to."

o0o0o

Silica fired off a short burst at the flesh. It squealed as a few rounds dug deep into its flesh. Deciding their potential meal was perhaps a bit too dangerous, the pack turned around and retreated, the wounded flesh limping a few dozen metres before keeling over dead.

The lead artefact container she now carried in her pack was heavy, but not as much as a good haul from a day's digging did. Adjusting the straps on her pack, Silica kept walking.

As she approached the base of the garbage pile she carefully surveilled the area for anyone else about before approaching the half-submerged car. The front end was crushed under tonnes of rock, but the back end was still serviceable. Opening it up, she peeled up the rotting carpet to reveal the round hole where the spare tire would have sat, and her artefact.

She quickly loaded the battery into her container and sealed up the lid with its clasp before putting it back in her pack.

Climbing up the garbage pile again she found the rack of scientific instruments. Rostok again stood in the distance. With the artefact she now carried and the bit of extra cash from the stuff she was pulling she wondered if she should move onto Rostok. New opportunities might await. New, safer work, maybe some people should work with. It was for later she told herself. Another ten minutes later she managed to slide to the bottom of the pile with another scientific instrument in her hands.

"Hey."

She gave the two stalkers a small smile and a nod but kept walking. She had reached the road she could follow to the Rail Shed about ten minutes before and not long after these two stalkers appeared. One carried a cut down pump-action shotgun of some sort, the other an MP5 submachine gun. They were lightly armoured in the usually ratty clothes most stalkers in the Garbage were wearing.

They gave her a wave before briskly out pacing her. With the rack-mount printer in her hands she couldn't reply. Another quarter of an hour later they disappeared around a bend in the distance. She relaxed a bit as they disappeared out of sight. She couldn't jump at shadows, but she was well aware she could be robbed. She didn't think the fact she was carrying an artefact was obvious – she just looked like every other digger honestly – but she wasn't going to take the risk.

As she turned a bend though she came within a short distance of four stalkers. Wearing balaclavas, they were perhaps two-dozen metres away with their hands on their weapons. Though not pointing them anywhere, yet, they were in a line across the road, their eyes on her.

Silica halted in her tracks.

"Hand it over, kid," said the man in the centre after a few agonising seconds.

To his left were two men armed with a cut down pump-action shotgun and an MP5. They wore the same ratty clothes they had worn earlier, sans the balaclavas. There was an anger deep inside her that she'd never felt before as she stared defiantly at the eyes of her fellow players. It was a strange type of treachery to face.

Silica stayed rooted to the spot, her PPSh-41 hanging limply across her shoulder by its sling and her hands full of heavy scientific equipment. She might have been able to run, the corner she had just walked out from – the corner than had allowed the bandits to get the jump on her – was only a few metres away. But then what? Would there be a few bandits shortly behind her to stop running attempts? Would they quickly follow and shoot her in the back as she ran?

It's was an uncomfortable feeling to be at the complete mercy of someone who wishes to do you harm.

"I said hand it over," their leader repeated, bringing his AK carbine up to his shoulder, his fellows following his lead.

Slowly she knelt down, placing the heavy printer on the ground. As she stood up and took a step back, her hands up, Silica silently cursed herself for trying their patience.

"You know damn well I'm talking about the artefact, bitch!"

Yeah, she was lucky they didn't shoot her.

Silica carefully shrugged the straps off her shoulders and then lowered the heavy pack to the ground.

"You gun too, and your ammo."

Even more carefully she slid the sub-machine gun off her shoulder, placing it on the ground next to her pack by its leather strap. She then pulled out a few magazines and dropped them to the ground.

"Start running."

Silica took a few steps back before turning and breaking out to a sprint. The lack of weight on her shoulders a harsh lesson on the Zone. When she came back an hour later, all that was left was bootprints and the printer she had left behind.

 **D+87**

"Grenade out!"

The heavy cast-steel body of the grenade make a clunk as it hit the concrete. The bandits stopped shooting for just a second as they realised what it was.

"Oberezhno! Hranata!"

The gunfire in the confines of the building was hell on their ears, but the grenade going off with a bone shaking noise was worse. It took a few seconds for the bandits to recover from the shock of the explosion and the wounded to start screaming.

Leaning out from behind the frame of large door to the workshop, Klein spotted a bloodied bandit hunched over and out of cover. The bandit was still moving and trying to get to his feet. Rather than given him the chance, Klein lined up the green T-shaped reticle on his rifle's sight with the bandit's chest and fired. The bandit jerked and slumped before he fired again at his head for good measure.

He took the opportunity to advance into the building, taking cover behind a piece of machinery.

"Cease fire!"

There were a few desultory shots after he gave the order, but the gunfire quickly ceased. Everyone waited at the ready for any movement or the appearance of some more bandits. Glancing behind himself, Klein could see all of his friends in Fuurinkazan standing and unwounded, but up the back a young man was giving medical attention to one of the people Diavel had given him who was on the ground and clearly bleeding. He gave a himself a moment to decide if he should leave someone behind the guard them, but decided against it as more of Diavel's people would be following up very soon.

"Dynamm, Harry, check those bodies," he ordered quietly before pointing at two of Diavel's people, a girl and a boy in their late teens. "You two watch our backs, everyone else watch the stairs."

Dale, Issin and Kunimittz, along with the three remaining of Diavel's people moved towards the stairs, taking cover behind whatever they could find. Finding himself behind a concrete pillar near the centre of the room, he gazed up the stairs. They had used some pictures of the outside of the building to put together some maps of the place. They were currently in the workshop with its high ceiling, one floor directly above them but on the second landing of the stairs was an office space, and on the first landing was a skyway across to another two-story office building.

His musing was broken by a single gunshot. Almost everyone turned their weapons towards Harry who was pointing his PPS-43 at the floor.

"Sorry," he said simply.

They'd planned this assault out step-by-step, but it was still high risk, which is why Diavel had hired them. Diavel had lots of people, but none of them had done any assaults before. To be honest, he hadn't either, at least not like this. They'd spent the first few weeks out west of Cordon, shooting zombies for loot. It wasn't much, so they moved on to hitting small groups of bandits. Hitting them in the dead of night in the many small villages that dotted the swamps.

So, despite never having done an assault like this before, they were probably the best qualified group south of Rostok to lead the assault on these buildings near the Agroprom Research Institute. Theses bandits had been causing trouble all along the west side of the Garbage, and this was their safe haven.

He still felt a little bit bad taking Diavel's money, but the reality was that he needed to feed himself and the rest of Fuurinkazan, buy and maintain gear, and buy ammo. So, they took what Diavel could spare. About a hundred people threw in money; not a lot, usually on a few hundred rubles each, but enough they'd been able to top up all their magazines, buy a new AK-74U for Dale, waste the last week on drills for moving through buildings and buy some armour for those who would be on point.

That said, moving up the stairs before them was going to be a bitch.

Pointing at the stairs, his people got into position. On his go, he and Issin walked up the stairs backwards, weapons covering the top landing, while Harry took a position at the top of the stairs and covered the skyway opposite.

Not seeing anyone, he used his off hand to tap Issin on the shoulder who stepped left, rifle still trailing the upper landing and took his first step onto the next staircase.

Pop.

The olive-green shape of a grenade sailed through doorway at the top of the stairs, bounced off the balustrade and sailed between them, before hitting the concrete with a clink on the first-floor landing. Issin blinked, before Klein grabbed him by his jacket, and pulled him down the stairs. Overbalancing, Klein fell backwards, pulling Issin with him, landing on Harry before rolling to the bottom of the stairs in a pile of limbs.

The following explosion was too close for comfort.

"Fuck," said Issin as he untangled himself from Klein and Harry.

Issin was pale, and staring up the staircase while Harry looked a bit squished. Some of the other guys from Fuurinkazan looked worried, while some of DIavels guys looked almost sick. Klein himself didn't feel too hot either. Swallowing, he tried not to show it as he went with plan B.

"You good to try again?" he asked them.

Issin looked more pained about the prospect than Harry, but both of them quickly nodded.

Turning to face Dynamm, he had to trust him to have a good throwing arm. He gestured for him to come closer.

"Put a grenade though the upper window, we'll go on the explosion, use one of the F1s," he said quickly and quietly.

Dynamm nodded and he pulled the heavy cast iron grenade out of a pouch on his webbing, before turning towards the large sliding door they had entered through. He stuck his head out, clanging both ways, before stepping out and turning towards the building. Eyes up, he pulled the pin and pulled his arm back to throw.

Klein turned away and faced up the stairs. He didn't like it very much, but needs must. Grenades were great going down stairs, but at the bottom, one mistake meant the grenade bounced back at you, with predictable results. Dynamm putting a grenade through the window was slightly better, but it was still easy to hit the window frame and have it come back at you.

Klein steeled himself, and waited for the body jarring explosion.

Bits of dust fell from the ceiling as the building shuddered and they began to move. A small bit of dust wafted through the doorway at the top as he came to the first landing. Again, he tapped Issin to move, and followed him up the stairs. As he reached the top he quickly passed the doorway to take up a position on the other side, while Issin stacked up on the left. There was a bang and a cloud of dust as a survivor took a shot at them.

Klein pulled out his own grenade, an RGD-5, pulled the pin, before releasing the spoon. The grenade made a pop sound as the striker fired, and Klein agonisingly counted to two before lobbing it under arm through the doorway.

"Hranata!" a bandit managed to get out before the cooked-off grenade exploded.

Klein and Issin stepped through the door at the same time – a tight squeeze – and swept the room. Klein took the right to find two bloodied corpses, before shouting "clear!" and then turning left.

Issin had his rifle up, stepping sideways to look around what appeared to be a wall of filling cabinets before he let off two long bursts. There was a soft thud followed by the clack of a weapon hitting the floor, before Issin leaned out again and took another step. He paused for a second then shouted "clear!".

Curious, Klein walked around the see what Issin had shot. There was a bloodied man slumped in front of a large desk, an AK underfolder on the floor next to him. Paper littered the small alcove the bandit had built, some now rapidly soaking up blood. Klein noted the safe in corner, but that was for later, they had another building to clear.

Klein reached for his radio

"Diavel, first building is clear, you can move up," he said through the radio.

" _Understood,"_ Diavel replied.

Harry was still covering the stairs as he walked back through the door. When he reached the bottom he found Essex. Essex was the guy who was supposed to lead the people Diavel had sent with him.

"Top floor's cleared. I need your guys up top now," he ordered.

The kid looked a bit unwell, so he gave him some more orders to keep him focused, saying them loudly enough so everyone could hear.

"Remember, you just have to put most of your guys on watching the hills to the east, but also don't forget to have someone watching west.

Essex nodded as his people started moving around.

Klein found his people and told them to get ready to assault across the skyway, then looked about for the person who got hit earlier. He gave a sad sigh when he saw the guy who had been tending to him sitting on a box a short distance away, while the body of a mid-teen lay a short distance away, with a pile of bloody bandages and empty packets of coagulant powder nearby.

Klein mentally berated himself for not noticing earlier, that he should have asked how their wounded was doing first and maybe not talked down to their leader who was on the verge of panicking.

His radio flared to life and Klein swore.

" _Attention, an emission is approaching, find cover at once!"_

o0o0o

The emission was a few minutes away. He could see the lightshow beginning in the sky.

"Diavel, you need to keep moving!"

The shouting probably didn't help, but it was frustrating how badly the emission was affecting their radios.

The plan had been for them to advance in two waves. Too many people in the confines of the workshop would be a disaster if a bandit lobbed a grenade or got the drop on them, so Diavel had been waiting about five-hundred metres away in the nearby railway tunnel with anther twenty odd people.

" _I know!_ " he shouted back, his voice crackling and distorted.

Through the PU scope he used for spotting, Klein could see where Diavel and three others were taking cover behind an isolated boxcar from the window, towards the north-east. He was two or three hundred metres away from their position and they were about one hundred from the fence line surrounding the factory. Closer were some more of Diavel's people, near the factory gates. On the hillside to the north were the remains of the bandit counterattack they had routed. The bandits presumably took shelter here during emissions, so not long after the announcement, a large group of twenty or so bandits starting down the hill towards them, some remaining up top to support them.

He wasn't sure what their plan was; they were going to die where they were when the emission hit. If the bandits ran, they could still make the railway tunnel Diavel had just abandoned. He could only assume it was some quirk of the AI.

"Everyone, get ready to fire on my mark," he ordered around the room.

There was about fifteen on them on the top floor, facing the blown-out windows. Everyone could see the muzzle flashes on the hillside. The people armed with submachine guns were really pushing the four hundred or so metre distance to the targets, but at this point every shooter counted.

"Last chance, Diavel. We'll be providing covering fire in about ten seconds, keep running and don't stop for anything."

There were a few glances at each other as everyone took position, weapons up and pointed at the hillside. About five seconds later Diavel responded.

 _"We'll be ready."_

Klein counted down in his head before depressing the talk button and giving the order.

"Go, now!"

Klein raised the PU scope again and watched as people started shooting. He could see the form of Diavel and someone else dragging another person between them. They were short, and maybe quite young. Klein grimaced at the fact Diavel had to carry wounded. Truthfully, Diavel mentioning it wouldn't have changed anything – he couldn't send anyone out to help at this late stage, but he would have liked to have been told none the less.

But then, after about twenty metres they dropped the girl who started running too. Bewildered, he watched as the bandits tried to pick up the fire again. As tracers snapped past them they passed a stack of concrete railway ties and the girl dove for cover. In front of her, the other three stalkers didn't see she had stopped, and didn't look back as he asked until they hit the fence line.

"What the fuck is she doing?" he muttered.

Safely in cover, Diavel turned and realising their fellow had been left behind, shouted at the girl as she hid from the bandit's fire. Some of his people started to jog the route around the buildings to the entrance. The emission would be here at any moment, but Diavel stood there shouting as two loyal stalkers stood by.

"Diavel, you need to move, now!" he shouted again into the radio.

Diavel didn't responded and continued to shout and gesture.

"Damn it," Klein swore. "Diavel, move!"

Still no response.

"Drag him back here or you'll die!" he radioed again, hoping to appeal to the stalkers standing nearby. He thought he could make out them moving this time.

Klein stood tense, watching the scene, before the two stalkers grabbed Diavel. He resisted for few moments before disappearing out of sight behind the building.

"Cease fire, get back from the windows," he ordered.

Towards the north he could see the wave energy building as it approached them. As always it was hauntingly beautiful. As the wave hit her, Klein could see her topple over and begin to jerk like she was having a seizure. Not wanting to watch the gruesome spectacle anymore he turned and headed down the stairs to the workshop.

He glanced at the three corpses arranged near the door, some of Diavel's people were standing nearby offering their prayers to their comrades, before turning to Diavel himself.

Diavel looked murderous as he kicked a crate repeatedly, the two stalkers who had presumably manhandled him towards cover stood awkwardly by. He didn't acknowledge Klein as he continued to vent his frustration before suddenly slumping and then sitting down, his head cradled in his hands.

Klein couldn't blame him really. He'd been lucky to have no lost any of his group, Diavel though had lost four people today, four people that were probably his friends. There were some other wounded as well, milling around. Harry had the worst of it from Fuurinkazan, having taken some frag from a grenade. His soft flak jacket did its job though, he'd only been wounded on the leg and arm.

Seeing as Diavel was in no state to talk, he turned and went back upstairs again. As the next emission wave grew, Klein could see the shambling form of the girl following the train tracks towards the fence line.

He could make her out now as she got closer; just some fucking kid who had not place here in the Zone. He watched her for a few moments longer before raising his AK. It was a relatively easy shot at a bit over one hundred metres.

None of them had a place here.

o0o0o

The next day they laid out all of the equipment looted from the bandits on the floor of the office for distribution. A few things had probably disappeared during the looting, but it wasn't worth fighting over. After everything was divided, Diavel's people had managed to gain some more serious firepower while already well equipped Fuurinkazan mostly took ammo and other little items having already been paid for the work.

"Where are you heading after this?" asked Diavel.

Diavel had spent the last day sullen, his second Essex taking up most of the work. He was still a bit green and Klein wasn't sure anyone would follow him in a fight, but corralling loot wasn't above him.

"Rostok, it's about time we headed north," Klein replied.

Diavel nodded slowly.

"If you need us for more work you can leave a message there. I'm pretty sure we'll going in and out of Rostok for a while."

There was some small talk as Fuurinkazan packed their gear away and got ready to head out on the road.

"Are you going north through Yantar, or through the Garbage?" Diavel asked, meeting them at the gate.

"The Garbage," Klein replied.

Yantar and then the Rostok Wilds apparently meant avoiding the toll, but…

"I haven't been up that way yet," he said as he shook his head. "Not sure I want to risk it yet until I've got some info from people who have been there."

Diavel nodded before, at the last moment, Diavel held out his hand which Klein shook.

* * *

This was supposed to be an interlude, but as you can see, it got a bit out of hand.


End file.
